DB's blog

My Rock Years: 1981 Volume 1

A very good year: got married (Charles & Di copied us. Saw "For your eyes only" on our honeymoon), Botham's Ashes (I'd love to have a DVD set of that series), Toxteth riots (they even had a little riot in Coventry where I was living, the original "Ghost Town"), coldest winter for decades (OK it wasn't all good) and pretty good for music, but things were slowing down a bit - much too good to cram into one disc, but stretching it a little for two. Went for the 2 disc option in the end (this was the last year for which I even considered this option):

Vienna - Ultravox

Under Pressure - Queen & David Bowie

Ghost Town - Specials

The River - Bruce Springsteen

I'm lucky - Joan Armatrading

Dead Ringer for Love - Meatloaf & Cher

For your Eyes only - Sheena Easton

Don't you want me - Human League

Joan of Arc - OMD

Start me up - Rolling Sones

Suffer the Children - Tears for Fears

The Thin Wall - Ultravox

One of us - ABBA

You better - Who

Pretty in Pink - Psychedelic Furs

Tunnel of Love - Dire Straits

Once in a Lifetime - Talking Heads

Summer viewing

 

An Education [DVD] [2009]

Here's a selection of the DVD's I've been watching recently (in addition to the separately reviewed Prisoner and Alice in Wonderland). They were all prezzies - birthday, Fathers' day, anniversary, wife's birthday - & they were all very good. Brick Lane was beautifully photographed (particularly the Bangladesh scenes) & pretty faithful to the book, albeit abridged. It's funny watching the Sherlock Holmes film while the Sherlock series is on BBC. Although they were set in different eras I thought there was a lot of similarity in the mood & style. I had a slight doubt about An Education - I thought the girl was much too precocious for a first child or only child who hung around with girls of her own age. It would have been more believable if she had an elder sibling. Inglorious Basterds - great fun.

 

Brick Lane [DVD] [2007]

 

Sherlock Holmes [DVD] [2009]

 

Inglourious Basterds [DVD] [2009]

Edgbaston Saturday & Sunday

Travelled over for a couple of days' test cricket (England v Pakistan) with a colleague & met up with my brother & some friends. Saturday was rain affected (although 4 hours play were still possible). After a particularly severe afternoon downfall, when at one stage it looked like there might not be any more play, we all adjourned to a The Old Moseley Arms. When the sun came out & play resumed, colleague & I returned to the ground, brother & friends continued drinking. Met up with them again after the match for an excellent curry (Kababish restaurant, which I have previously lauded here), but by this time bro was pretty far gone, so although we told him several times that we would be staying over for Sunday night (he & friends only had tickets for the Saturday) & wanted to meet up again on Sunday evening, he forgot, stood us up, turned his phone off & went to bed. So we returned to the Broad St area & had a curry at the Blue Mango (where we had eaten on Friday night - again very good). When we walked in Ian Botham was already there & shortly afterwards David Gower came in!

England played some impressive cricket both mornings, and some pretty lousy cricket both afternoons, but in the end won comfortably enough.

1972 Volume 2

Run run run - Jo Jo Gunne

Virginia Plain - Roxy Music

Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie

Goodbye to Love - Carpenters

You wear it well - Rod Stewart

Rock & Roll Part 2 - Gary Glitter

Rocket Man - Elton John

All the young Dudes - Mott the Hoople

Walk on the wild Side - Lou Reed

Jigs - Steeleye Span

Look wot you dun - Slade

Wigwam Bam - Sweet

Sister Josephine - Jake Thackray

Lean on me - Bill Withers

Without you - Harry Nilsson

Changes - David Bowie

Vicious - Lou Reed

Mama weer all crazee now - Slade

Elected - Alice Cooper

Highway Star - Deep Purple

Creative Writing 101

Cloud Atlas

David Mitchell

I was given this as a birthday or Fathers’ Day prezzie & I’m ashamed to say I had never heard of it. (My first thought was that it was by the “…and Webb” guy!) But it came strongly recommended by people whose judgement I respect, and clearly the professional critics loved it (Booker short list, Richard & Judy etc etc). However it’s interesting that there are a lot of mixed opinions amongst the Amazon reviewers.

 

I had a go at a correspondence course in Creative Writing a few years ago, and one thing they suggested for aspiring novelists was to send off to publishers a scenario, a skeleton plot and a couple of sample chapters. You could then work it up into a book at your leisure, or more quickly if any of them took the bait. Simple really. Except that for me the idea, the rough plot & a couple of chapters was always the easy part, and I never did manage to work anything up.

 

It strikes me that David Mitchell has similar problems, because “Cloud Atlas” reads to me like half a dozen such treatments bent into short stories, then clumsily tacked together.

 

The guy can clearly write, and his science fiction exercises were particularly good. If he genuinely can’t build his ideas up into full novels, then he should consider sticking to this genre, where the short story has a long & illustrious history. On the other hand he should steer clear of thrillers!

What do you expect to see from a Glasgow hotel window? Sidney Opera House?

Just back from a huge polymer conference in Glasgow - eleven parallel sessions, probably the biggest ever in Europe, certainly the biggest ever in the UK. Masses to digest & I'm still suffering from brainstrain. I had never set foot in Glasgow before, although I had frequently passed through it at speed on my way up to the highlands. Admittedly I didn't sample the night-life (I was too wrecked each evening), but I have to say, I wasn't very impressed. I hated the way a motorway carves through the centre (fortunately they ran out of money before the planners could do the same to Liverpool). And I thought the docklands redevelopment, while architecturally quite stylish (witness the conference centre below) was rather soulless, compared to what they've done in Liverpool or London (Dublin is somewhere in between.) And I didn't see a single boat moving on the Clyde for the whole week I was there.

 

Secc

 The conference dinner was held in a museum/art gallery that, to my shame, I had never heard of: Kelvingrove. I was sufficiently impressed to revisit it on my last aftermoon, after the conference was finished. It was purpose built as a civic museum/art gallery in 1907, and refurbished in 2007. They make a real effort to cater for what the locals want, and as a result it is apperently the seventh most visited museum in the world!

 

Kelvingrove 1

Kelvingrove 2

I particularly liked the "heads" hanging from the ceiling. They counterbalance a Spitfire hanging in the other end of the building. They were put up especially in 2007 for the reopening, supposedly as a temporary exhibition, but proved so popular that they are now permanent.

 

Kelvingrove heads 1

Anyway, all-in-all a mind-bending trip.

Kelvingrove heads 2

My Rock Years: 1972 (Cod War) Volume 1

My A-level (& Oxford entrance) year. Some great music - perhaps not quite enough for 2 volumes, but certainly too much for one.

School's out - Alice Cooper

Smoke on the Water - Deep Purple

Handbags & Gladrags - Rod Stewart

Gudbuy t'Jane - Slade

Hold your Head up - Argent

Crocodile Rock - Elton John

American Pie - Don McLean

I can see clearly now - Johnny Nash

Perfect Day - Lou Reed

You're so vain - Carly Simon

Little Willy - Sweet

Donna - 10cc

Isobel makes Love upon National Monuments - Jake Thackray

Join together - Who

Silver Machine - Hawkwind

The first Time ever I saw your Face - Roberta Flack

Burlesque - Family

The Jean Genie - David Bowie

Nature v Nurture v Will

 

 

 

Dombey and Son (Penguin Classics)

Charles Dickens

Where are the roots of our character defects (or “vices” as the mid-Victorians would call them)? Are they innate? Do they result from family and social pressure? And can we control them? In this huge, strange, meandering book Dickens explores these questions and comes to a conclusion remarkably similar to the modern view of the genes versus upbringing debate – both nature and nurture impinge on our characters and their effects can’t be disentangled. And yes, with an effort, we can control our flaws for a while, but they only go away if our entire world-view is destroyed.

 

Clearly the “vice” most prominent in “Dombey and Son” is over-weaning Pride, exemplified by Dombey, Edith and James Carker and brought into sharp contrast by the self-effacing characters of young Paul, Florence and Harriet Carker. Crime and prostitution also feature strongly. But there’s something else I’ve been wondering about: Is Edith meant to be a lesbian?

 

I haven’t delved into the literary criticism of the book, but neither the introduction to the edition I read, nor the Wikipedia entry alluded to it and a quick googling didn’t throw up any useful hits. But consider. She is clearly a man-hater. You can almost feel the frisson when she first meets Florence. And even if her desire for Florence has to be suppressed we find out that she goes out most evenings but we never find out where.

 

Dickens was a man enough of the world to know of the Victorian London’s lesbian circle, but also sufficiently astute not to discuss it in print. But the habit and the reasons for it would fit perfectly into Dickens’ treatment of vice.

 

So certainly worth a read if you haven’t opened it before. And maybe worth re-reading in the light of my suggestion. I’d welcome some comments.

When you're a fart, other farts check you out...

Back in the mid-80's, if career decisons had gone slightly differently, I could have ended up working in Barcelona. If that had happened we would probably have lived somewhere down the Costa Dorada  and commuted in - my work would have been in Prat de Llobregat which is at that end of the city. The place we were thinking of was Sitges, which back then seemed an unexceptional place. So when eldest daughter decided to organise a family holiday earlier this year & wife suggested somewhere near Barcelona, but by the sea and less noisy, her search came up with a pleasant-looking, inexpensive apartment in Sitges and it didn't cause us any eyebrow raising.

 

Sitges pool

So once the apartment was booked we googled on "Sitges" to find out a bit more about it and discovered immediately that in the interim it had become Spain's gay capital. So we set off a couple of weeks ago with a degree of - I wouldn't call it "trepidation" (the whole family is pretty relaxed about other peoples' lifestyle choices) so let's say "mildly nervous curiosity".

In fact, although the place was clearly gay-friendly, gayness wasn't "in your face" (sorry) at all. I reckoned I was checked out by a few other middle-aged gentlemen, but we didn't see all that many obviously gay youngsters during the day (but the daughters & eldest daughter's boyfriend tell me it was a different story after midnight - the wife & I always sloped off after dinner). There was a nudist beach a bit along the coast, which we didn't visit, so I guess that's where they mostly "hung out".

We were more curious about the owners of the apartment. The letting agency didn't say anything about them and the welcome brochure didn't give any names but said that they planned to retire there some day, implying a couple. But the postbox in the foyer named three British blokes - so are they in a triangular relationship, or are they three middle-aged guys looking to pick up young Spaniards at the beach down the coast? None of our business though & the excellent selection of DVD's wouldn't have suggested anything unusual. (Somebody had however written in the visitors' book: "If this is supposed to be a gay apartment, how come there aren't any Will & Grace videos?") 

The main beaches were mostly populated by the town's inhabitants or day-trippers down from Barcelona. And I haven't seen so many tits per square metre anywhere since the 1980's. Maybe it's making a come back, which would be mostly a good thing  except that there were lots of middle aged or frankly elderly boobs that should never have seen the light of day. But if that's what it takes to persuade the local totty that it's socially acceptable to take their tops off, then i suppose it's a price worth paying. 

Had an excellent holiday. Didn't do all that much sight-seeing, but enough to justify the trip. In all my business trips to Barcelona I had never seen the inside of Sagrada Familia (or even the outside from close up) so had to rectify that. Brilliant!

 

Sagrada 1

Sagrada 2

Also took in Tarragona - a busy working town & not the sort of place you would want to spend your holidays, but the Roman remains are very impressive & the archaeological musem is excellent. And we went to Vilafranca for one day of "Vijazz", a wine festival and jazz festival combined. Incredible value. €8 gets you three glasses of wine and a free seat for the evening's jazz gig. When we were there the warm up act ( a mostly German band called the Tingvall Trio, who I had never heard of) were themselves great entertainment. The top act was Marcus Miller, who I think I had heard of - he used to play with Miles Davis - but I didn't know much about him. He's an astonishing virtuoso bass guitarist, and his ax player, Alex Han, was also brilliant. It was particularly delightful when the two jammed off each other.

Loved the food, although there were some bizarre translations on the menus. (How about "Oven of kid to the Segovian one"?). Temperatures mostly 28-30 in the middle of the day, so mostly comfortable enough, although I cooked in the ampitheatre in Tarragona & the apartment sitting room got too warm in the evening, especially on the few occasions we cooked & ate in (bedrooms were air-conditioned).

Thanks to eldest duaghter for the pictures. I'll put some more up when the reat of the family deign to send me any.

Vorpal!

I don't normally post best sellers like this because it doesn't really say anything much about me, nor do I review them on amazon as my review probably won't even be read, but I do want to say something about this.

Alice in Wonderland [DVD] [2010]

I remember watching the 1966 Jonathan Miller ádaptation as a kid and taking a disapproving puerile attitude because it wasn't sufficiently faithful to the text. A few years later on I thought it was brilliant. It strikes me that many of the negative reviews of the Tim Burton are similarly puerile - criticising it for not being what they were expecting, rather than judging it on its own terms.

Burton's Underland contains references to other classical imaginary countries: Middle Earth (Christopher Lee as The Jabberwock, although the links are closer to the Witch King than Saruman), Narnia (turning the dormouse into Reepicheep), "The Water Babies" (Alice's surname in the film is Kingsleigh - homophonic with Kingsley) and Oz (with Anne Hathaway's rather uncomfortable witchlike White Queen reminiscent of the Good Queen of the North, even if she looks more like Narnia's White Witch). And like all four the story contains a moral imperative missing from Carroll's book. Here Alice needs to find a balance between establishing her freedom from social pressures and supposed destiny and doing her bit for the good guys in the film.

An excellent, funny film with frabjous visuals.