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Blogger Takeover LXXXIX

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BOOM! Timing of a mongoose!! It’s pinch, punch first of the month AND it’s time for us all to gather round the BBQ table – vegetarian options on the faraway grill, away from the meat, and everything else on this one. Grab a plate, grab some sides, help yourselves to a wee refreshment, and please tell us – what have you been watching , reading , listening to, or otherwise using to divert yourselves from all the current mayhem?

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  1. oooh, haven’t done one of these for a while

    LISTENING

    The records I’ve been enjoying most this month include Jasdeep Singh Degun‘s Anomaly, which is Punjabi classical music by way of Leeds, with some virtuoso sitar playing (not that I am at all qualified to state what constitutes virtuoso sitar playing) married to excellent percussion and cinematic strings. Also been digging into the enormous back catalogue of Sadness, a one man shoegaze / metal project who has put out something like 39 releases since 2014. It’s excellent stuff, lashings of melancholic beauty against a lo-fi noise. Most of you are going to hate it, but the recent “Kiss In October” is as good a place as any to start. In a sunnier mood, Kibrom Birhane‘s Here And There album was lovely Ethiopian jazz.

    Also been to a few gigs. If I may sneak one in from the end of May, then Dhidalah were absolutely stunning, a Tokyo three piece who sit right in the sweet spot between Neu! and Electric Wizard, motorik grooves with plenty of stoner doom goodness on top. One of those shows where you lose yourself to the music, ninety minutes worth of wave after wave of fuzzed out guitar solos riding the Dinger beat to heaven / oblivion. In June proper, legendary punks Bad Religion were tremendous fun and left me grinning for days. Bob Mould not quite so much. He was playing solo with an electric guitar, and while he is undoubtedly a melodic wizard I did miss a rhythm section. Rounded off the month with High On Fire, who are Sleep mainman Matt Pike’s other band. Basically Motörhead with a fuzz pedal, very loud and very fun.

    READING
    Mick Herron‘s latest Slough House book, Bad Actors was reliably enjoyable. I don’t think he gets enough credit for just how funny he is amidst all the espionage mayhem. The only other things that stood out in a sea of blah were a couple of PG Wodehouse‘s Jeeves novels, but you don’t need me to tell you just how incredibly good they are

    WATCHING
    Disney+ has had most of my attention this month. Been enjoying Ms. Marvel a lot, and Kenobi had some excellent Star Wars stuff in (some less good stuff as well, but we don’t talk about that, right?). Over on Netflix Stranger Things 4 is fun but waaaaay too long. Wished they hadn’t bothered with the whole Russian angle – it ruined the third season, and it’s making this one far too bloated. Think it’s interesting that the core characters from the first season are now the most annoying and/or blank of the lot, and it’s the additions to the cast list that are providing most of the enjoyment.

  2. I have mostly been listening to Kraftwerk – I picked up Der Katalog, which is their Imperial Period, on CD, in German. So now I am happy to pronounce that if it is not in German, then it is only Power Station. Every album is great, beautifully recorded and warm and packed with ideas.

    I’ve been reading hard-boiled thrillers even more than usual – Richard Stark, especially. The Outfit, Mourner, Breakout – all tip-top, tightly-plotted, packed with twists and turns.

    I also dipped back through Richard Hell’s book Massive Pissed Love: Nonfiction 2001-2014. Dark, wry, insightful – an excellent collection of his non-fiction work, great on films, on the Velvet Underground vs. The Rolling Stones, on friends he lost along the way. Not necessarily a book to read all in one sitting, but excellent for dipping in to.

    It also lead me back to the book Rock & Roll Cage Match (“Music’s Greatest Rivalries, Decided”) where Richard Hell referees The Velvet Underground vs The Rolling Stones. (No, I’m not telling you who won, GO READ THE BOOK!)

    TV ? Nein danke.

  3. Listening:
    Humdrum Express are back gently skewering the absurd with indie-folk-ska rhythms
    Owning 1 Warren Zevon album and a Best Of was just not right, so I’m grateful to those Classic Album Series things that package 5 albums into a slip case for a tenner
    Bachman-Turner Overdrive filled a 70s Rock craving
    The Undertones have been heavily played (The Sin Of Pride is not a bad album at all)
    Album Of The Month (maybe even Year): Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band – Dear Scott

    Reading
    Mick Wall – When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography Of Led Zeppelin.
    May not be wholly authorised biography, but does a job of debunking some of the Hammer Of The Gods mythology
    Mojo may actually be getting back to being interestingly readable (now I’ve said that, next month may be back to regurgitating and revisiting again)

    Seen
    BBC Drama Sherwood was OK
    The Outlaws remains very watchable
    Borg vs McEnroe documentary worthwhile
    Macca at Glastonbury, including Jaw on the floor moments with Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen
    (Macca’s set was the only Glasto I watched this year)

  4. I’ve had a good month for music. As I mentioned on my Supper’s Ready thread, I’m going through a particularly fertile period of discovering music I love which is new to me.

    MUSIC
    ——–
    Genesis – Foxtrot: What an album. Supper’s Ready I’ve already raved about on my thread, but the rest of the album is mighty fine as well. It’s definitely more of the same stuff as Nursery Cryme (the arpeggios, the funny voices, the convoluted lyrics with biblical allusions, the awkward time signatures…), but maybe a touch more confident.
    Favourite track: Supper’s Ready, obviously.
    (Next month: Selling England by the Pound)

    King Crimson – Starless and Bible Black: Not as distinctive as Larks’ Tongues, but I find myself repeatedly drawn back to it. I had no idea King Crimson sounded like this. It’s more like Captain Beefheart in places than English prog (or at least what I thought of as English prog). It’s startlingly tight and muscular sounding for an album from 1974, but maybe that’s the Steven Wilson remix; I don’t really know the original.
    Favourite track: Trio. My, what a tune. Apparently at this time they improvised a lot on stage, which sounds like a recipe for disaster, but when a band latches onto something as profound and gentle as the four or five minutes of Trio, it makes you think all the noodling must all be worth it. Having said that, I think the loud, crazy bits on the album make the gentle bits like Trio all the more effective by comparison. My favourite King Crimson track so far by far.
    (Next month: not sure actually, I should go to the next album Red, which would complete (what I have heard is) the big King C trilogy of classics… but something is drawing me back to the earlier albums, which I also haven’t heard yet. I like the covers of the earlier LPs and they feel like they might be more goofy and psychedelic – a good thing).

    Steve Hackett – Voyage of the Acolyte: I love this, but I think it should have been edited and shuffled a bit. I don’t like the widdly show-off tracks like Ace of Wands and A Tower Struck Down and I honestly think the album would be stronger if these were pruned.
    The standout track is the closing one, Shadow of the Hierophant: it’s a thrill to hear Sally Oldfield’s soaring voice, and that closing, evil-sounding, cyclical guitar riff (shades of I Want You (She’s so Heavy)?) is majestic.
    Between this and Supper’s Ready, I owe it to myself to see Hackett on his tour this year, don’t I?

    BOOKS
    ———
    Lord of the Rings – Tolkien: Turning into an annual ritual for me. Favourite chapter this time round was Fog on the Barrow Downs

    Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain – Amy Jeffs: A nicely illustrated and judiciously chosen set of British legends and folk tales, telling (in rough chronological order) an alternative, magical history of the country, from the earliest days of warring giants right up to St Kentigern and stuff like that. The best bits were the Arthurian stuff. I love a bit of Merlin.

    FILMS and TV
    —————-
    I watched two racing car movies, which is unusual for me because I’m not into racing. Grand Prix (1966) and Le Mans (1971). Both were brilliant, with stunningly filmed race sequences. Grand Prix had the more stylish filming style, Le Mans was a leaner, more effective story (plus I prefer Steve McQueen to James Garner)

    Russian Doll – I’m up to episode 5 of series 2, and I’m getting very confused. Hopefully it will all make sense in the end.

    • I like both Grand Prix and Le Mans – saw both as a kid and happily rematch at any given opportunity. And yes, Le Man’s is the better of the two.
      Other Racing Car films worth a watch: Rush (Hunt vs Lauda) and Le Man’s 66 (Ford vs Ferrari)

      Signed, an unashamed Motorsort Fan

    • I kind of envy you discovering all this ‘old’ – finding it fresh for the first time. All those albums you mention are among my ‘go to’ albums for the time. In my head I think I almost consider Larks Tongues and Starless and Bible Black as a double album; brought out in close proximity, almost the same line up, by Crimso standards. I lean to the latter as my favourite Crimso album. Like Trio, the track S&BB was born of live improvisation and still haunts me as one of the weirdest, most exhilarating tracks in my ken, while the onslaught of Fracture, in its day, must have been one helluva live experience.

      Keep on enjoying!

      • Well, Chesh – who knew we had so much in common! The only difference is the double album comment – if forced, I’d say that S&BB and Red go together better. Maybe if you extract LTIA pts 1 and 2 and add them into what is now a double CD timing wise…then again, maybe the experience would be too intense…

        …or just buy the Starless box…

    • @Arthur-Cowslip
      Prompted by your post, I’ve been listening to S&BB almost exclusively over the last day or two. It really is their best album in my view.

      I’ve come to the conclusion that Trio is the best of the small, jewel-like KC tunes – while Fracture is probably the best of the big beasts, with arguably the finest example of Fripp’s “knitting pattern” guitar on record. The rest of the band are in astonishingly fine form. It might – might – be transcended by the live version on USA, due to the rhythm section’s tendency to lay waste to all before it. But I’m not sure – depends what mood I’m in…

      • Sounds like I have lots more to discover. Would you say Red is the one to go for next then?

        I must say I do like the songs though (as opposed to instrumentals). The guy’s voice sounded a bit strange and weak at first, but now I’m used to it I just love it. There are less songs on Red aren’t there?

        The interplay in the band is really amazing to hear, but not in a off-putting, super-noodley show-off way (which would annoy me after a while I think). They just lock in together really well.

  5. Grand Prix is objectively not a very good film.

    But, as I’ve said here before, but, it has the most fantastic theme tune and split-screen fx and gives a quite amazing snap-shot of Formula 1 – in the 3-litre era, but before the Ford DFV – at that time. Even though most of the cars are dolled-up lower formula – like Rush – the atmosphere is considerably better than the dialogue; the full Spa circuit looks terrifying. The movie footage was often done during practice for the real races in that season. James Garner was apparently so good, that the drivers employed to drive the ‘stunt’ cars thought he should switch careers.

    • One of my favourite scenes from one of my favourite comedies. The observation of that IT support guy is painfully spot on. ‘What are you doing to my computer?’, ‘Well it’s not “your” computer, is it now?’

      Wading through acres of pedantry in order to get a straight answer about anything… A bit like here! Ho ho!

  7. LISTEN

    Fleetwood Mac – the Complete Blue Horizon Sessions.

    Some kind person has plonked the whole thing up on YouTube but as is often the case with these things, you need the booklet to read all about it. Especially here where the booklet is written by Mike Vernon who, thankfully, and unlike many persons of our vintage, is still with us and has an amazing memory for these sessions, all of which he produced. The Dustbin album was truly seminal for me and I still love it.

    Sam Gendel – Superstore

    My son, who makes his own electronic music, put me on to this LA saxophonist and composer/producer. He’s very prolific and draws inspiration from everywhere. Ambient/humorous/occasionally funky – I really like it

  8. Read:

    Finished Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro and really enjoyed it. Takes place in a day, when Elena slowly makes her way through Buenos Aires, timing her Parkinson’s medication carefully, to try to get to the bottom of the death of her daughter. We follow her inner monologue which is often very funny, but it’s a cruel story and Elena’s journey will end with a few truths she didn’t expect to learn.

    The latest from John Ajvide Lindqvist is called Verkligheten (“The Reality”) and is only a slim thing of 157 pages, more a novella than a novel, and probably either should have been cut down and made into a short story, or gone on a bit longer (and gotten a less open ending) to feel like a proper novel. It’s an OK satire on reality TV, quite funny in that respect, but the “horror” elements of the story lack something…is the narrator hallucinating? Is it concpiracy theories seen as reality during a mental breakdown, or is she having actual flashbacks to real memories? It’s too unclear, and the ending doesn’t help. But well written and a bit creepy at times, with a few giggles.

    A very short volume of poetry of the nonsensical kind was quickly consumed as “a toe in the shallow water” to a project I’m thinking of starting, reading and re-reading as much of Carl Jonas Love Almqvist‘s works as I can find, starting with the ones I already own and love. He’s one of my favourite Swedish authors, but I haven’t read as much of him as I ought to – probably because I’m afraid that I won’t love everything as much as I want to!

    I enjoyed Vivian Gornick‘s book The Odd Woman and the City much better than her memoir “Fierce Attachments”. These are sort of essays and vignettes about her life in New York, friendships of hers and in general, the city around her and as an idea and a character, quoting other writers on these subject and agreeing or disagreeing with them, quoting strangers she overhears on her walks. Quite interesting, entertaining and thought-provoking, even when I disagreed with her ideas (or her behaviour). Gave it to my mum and she disliked it…”too intellectual”. But she loved her memoirs, which I found to be trying way too hard to seem intellectual – we just don’t have the same taste in writing!
    Becoming her “librarian” during these covid years (and now when her back is too bad to walk all the way to the library) is often a very frustrating task…!

    Was recommended The Day the World Came to Town – 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland written by Jim De Fede, but was disappointed. It’s sort of an interesting story (about how a lot of aeroplanes had to be rerouted to Canada when the American air space was shut down during 9/11), but told in a style I like to call “old housewife’s magazine prose”. My mum’s oldest friend would drop off a bunch of magazines a few times a year when I was a kid, and besides recipes, knitting patterns, crossword puzzles and romance short stories, they were filled with “True Life” stories “as told to” some competent, but not excellent, journalist. This reminded me of those stories. Sort of “feel good non-fiction”, didn’t do much for me.

    See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt is a brilliant reimagination of the Borden murders, told from different perspectives and jumping back and forth in time to give us a well written, literary – sometimes poetic but also quite creepy and unpleasant – account of what happened and why (imagined of course). As far as I can tell it keeps to the known facts apart from adding a character who is used as a literary device to have a witness to certain scenes that can’t be narrated by any of the other characters, and that part is very well done and adds to the quality of the story. A pageturner that stays with you afterwards, it’s claustrophobic, tactile, smelly, foul-tasting, and after reading it to the end you feel like taking a shower to remove the sense of sticky pear juice, sweaty clothes, blood, brain substance and bits of skin, the stench of death, old rotten soup, vomit, pigeon crap and stale air in a house full of locked doors and shut windows. Highly recommended!

    I also read Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejidé, a novel soaked in magic realism, myths and fairy tales, voudou, precognitions and ghosts. About life, death and after-death, feelings of loss, guilt, revenge and the wild beasts walking among us. A twin alone, a haunted taxi, sexual abuse, estranged family, set in Washington, DC in 1977, but the poor parts of the city. Well written for the most part and an engaging story, poetic and metaphorical prose and well written individual voices. The ending may be too fantastical for some, but I liked it.

    Finally got around to read The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi, and it lived up to all of the hype. The title reveals the painful center of the story, the narrative jumps back and forth and between POVs and the all-knowing authorial voice. Vivek Oji is found dead and naked on the porch of the parents house and in her grief the mother is determined to find out what happened, visiting Vivek’s friends again and again to question them about the day it happened. Very well written story, very moving and hard to put down, great ending. The quick change of attitudes from the parents when they find out about Vivek’s secrets have some measure of wishful thinking about them, but understandably so.

    At first, reading The Regulators by Stephen King was a bit confusing, when I started to recognize names from his novel Desperation in a way that seemed strange…I knew they had something to do with each other, but not that they were “mirror stories”; parallel universe stylee. Anyway, I didn’t find that out until afterwards (didn’t want to risk spoilers by wiki-ing the matter before I finished) and just went on to enjoy this novel without worrying about the similarities/differences – I read the other one many years ago, so didn’t quite remember enough to compare anyway. And I loved it, I always enjoy the more supernatural stories and this is a highly entertaining action thriller set in a surburban street slowly turning into the Wild West with space monsters – what’s not to love? Very violent, so not for weak stomachs I suppose. Although I seem to remember that “Desperation” was more violent, perhaps? I also enjoyed the use of “mixed media” to tell this bonkers story, and the ending was (surprise, surprise!) very satisfactory.

    This inspired me to pick up one of the King novels I’ve had on my shelf the longest without reading it, so at the moment I’m 1/3 into Needful Things – but I’m not enjoying this one much, so far.

    Anyway, I digress: besides these novels I also read one republished childrens book (lovely illustrated) by Jakob Wegelius of “The Murderer’s Ape” fame, called Esperanza. Short, but sweet, and reminding me of some of the books by Maria Gripe and their illustrations (by her husband Harald).
    And also the short story Galatea by Madeline Miller, which was a disappointment. Too short, not enough meat on those bones.

    Now, besides the King novel, I’m reading a novel by Swedish Finn author Kjell Westö, on male friendship, ageing and music, as it seems (only a few chapters into it so far).

    Seen:

    Went to my first post-pandemic gig mid-month to see Big Thief at Filadelfia. Loved it! New venue to me, but I quite liked it. And the band was great and Adrianne Lenker was brilliant, mesmerizing the audience – she was standing to the right of the stage and at one point I tore my gaze away from her to look at the audience and the whole floor in front of the stage was standing turned (full body, not just head) to the right to look at her, ignoring the guys in the band completely… But deservedly so: her incredible vocals, her guitar playing, her charisma (despite hardly saying anything and looking painfully shy and embarrassed most of the time when the audience showed their love). A great time was had by all, I think (unless @Duco01 disagrees?) I guess you can always argue about song choices, if a favourite is missing from the set list, but on the other hand, they don’t really have any weak songs…

    AOB:
    The heat we’ve been having made this week a nightmare…coming back after a week’s vacation to a place of work more like a sauna than anything else, and the nights being too hot to go to sleep in, lying there sweating and brain boiling like in a fever…got four hours of sleep two nights ago, which was the least, but six hours of sleep one night was the most I got all week. It’s only been around 30 degrees, but a very damp and oppressive 30 that was thick enough to chew. And at work…more like 35 and equally oppressive. I almost fainted yesterday. Thank god for the walk-in refrigerator! Thankfully it looks like rain and thunderstorms will clear away the worst of this heat next week. Yes please…three more weeks to go until my proper vacation.

  9. Read
    Colm Toibin’s The Master, a literary equivalent of a biopic about the German 20th Century writer Thomas Mann is superb. Even if you have no interest in Mann, the portrait of a major German figure and his extraordinary family living through the first half of the 20th century is fascinating.

    Saw
    Crowded House at Castlefield Bowl in Manchester was just joyous. What a wonderful songwriter Neil Finn is, and his and the band’s performance was truly engaging and committed. God knows how many times he has sung those big hits but he still made them as fresh as if it was the first time.

    And on TV, Sherwood was absolutely brilliant. Right up there as an example of the kind of superb, character driven, and deeply social drama the BBC has given us over the decades. Of course the Tories and the #defundthebbc mob will hate it because it wears its political heart on its sleeve. The coincidental timing of the scene when Lindsay Duncan sashays in for a 5 minute cameo and gives a big speech about how the Conservative government want the miners’ strike to happen because it suits their narrative about political disruptive trade unions who need to be crushed, broadcast on the very day when the rail strike started, was breathtaking. And what a cast. Unmissable.

    Heard
    I am loving Angel Olsen’s new album. Her gorgeous, warm voice lifts and swoops like Roy Orbison above a decidedly country-ish backing. Some great songs as well. Too early to say, but it might just be her best yet, and that’s saying something.

    And Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler’s record is great too. She is clearly strongly influenced by her contemporary (they were born just a month apart) Laura Marling, but her musical chops, and those of Butler, make sure this is a record with its own sound and character. This isn’t just impressive for an actor doing a side project; it’s superb in its own right.

      • I’m tempted to go back and write the Lindsay Duncan monologue down line-by-line.

        The shit-fest?
        Erm, what she said.

        On a similar theme, I heard an interview with Lewis Hamilton today.
        Articulate doesn’t come into it.
        Another reason why Old Etonians, and the doffer-of-caps to Old Etonians, hate him.

        • It was brilliant, wasnt it? not only the writing, but Duncan herself, of course. As someone said on Twitter – ‘Gotta love Lindsay Duncan – arrives, smokes a fag, delivers a monologue for the ages, and waltzes out leaving pure electricity crackling in her wake…’

  10. Flaming June, came and went in a flash:

    Heard:
    Shed loads.
    Liminanas and David Menke – a double soundtrack The Ballad of Linda L and The Devil inside me
    _ I love this band and both of these could easily be Tarantino Soundtracks – superb.
    Tedeschi Trucks – I had intended to resist this as I thought 4 separate cd’s in a series was a bit self indulgent but then I heard a track and dived in with the first one. Very good – especially the final track.
    The Smile – Alight for attracting attention, The Radiohead/Sons of Kemet supergroup – fabulous music that grabs your attention on first listen and reveals more layers with repeat plays.
    Little Feat – Electrif Lycanthrope – no words needed.
    Joan Shelley – The Spur – her voice is crystal clear, the songs are great and it is better than her last album which is high praise indeed.
    Drive By Truckers – Welcome 2 club XIII. Continuing their rich vein of form.
    Buddy Miller -the best of the High Tone years – I pulled this off the shelf this month after not hearing it for a while – love it – not sure if I prefer him alone or with wife Julie but either option is pretty damn good.
    Finally in the heard section a mention for this months Mojo CD which is New York themed – absolutely fantastic – one of their best for ages.

    SEEN:
    After a relative dearth for previous months I had something of a bumper month. Costello and the Imposters reviewed elsewhere.
    Crowded House the very next day – the guitar interplay between Neil and son Liam was a real joy and the sound was excellent unlike Costello the night before in the Symphony Hall which is supposed to have the best sound in the country.
    Next up Black Deer 3 day festival. Surprise highlight for me was James – never seen them live before – they were brilliant. Wilco were excellent and on the saturday the London Gospel choir performing Graceland was a real treat. As with all festivals there are clashes and I opted for Imelda May (Very good) over Israel Nash who people raved over. Also I went for Felice Brothers who I love instead of Emily Barker who I really want to see. Discovery of the festival was Jack Broadbent – A yorkshire slide guitarist playing authentic Blues. He has just supported Little Feat on their US tour and did a great version of Willin.
    And just to put my head above the parapet Van the Man played a great set on the Sunday evening – ignoring the crowd pleasers he chose a good set and the band as always excellent. Thankfully only one track off the new album – maybe he has disowned it already.
    The last weekend was The Eagles at Hyde Park – very good. Highlight for me was Joe Walsh’s brilliant Funk49 – lowlight was Joe Walsh’s brilliant Life’s been good – love the song. The playing was great. his vocal was mangled.
    On TV my wife and I have been obsessed with Borgen – how did I miss this? Brilliant.
    We watched Top Gun Maverick which was greatly entertaining tosh and Elvis which was also good but could have been better. I personally don’t think it was as good as Walk the Line but what do I know. I think the trailer was so good that it had hyped it up for me and i was left a little deflated.

    READ:
    very slow in the reading department – I have just started the Ian Clayton biography of Plainsong.

  11. Spent most of the month trying to work out the difference between Rugby Union and Rugby League – good job I’m not the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport speaking at the launch of a Rugby League World Cup.

    Otherwise, obviously, mainly woke and concerned with wokery …

    Music
    Sun Ra – “The Magic City” 65 / Marvin Gaye – “In the Groove” 68 / Isley Brothers – “It’s Our Thing” 69 / Isley Brothers – “The Brothers: Isley” 69 / “This is Ann Peebles” 69 / Temptations – Puzzle People 69.
    Listening to black albums-as-albums and moving slightly across to another one when I’ve played them ten or so times.

    Exception: The Beach Boys… it’s summer and Uncut have just put out a Special (sold out in my local W.H. Smith – unlike the Smiths and Marillion Specials which are all in exactly the same place they were a month ago), so “Surfin USA,” “Shut Down Volume 2,” “All Summer Long,” “Today!” it is.
    Uncut still refuses to see pop music as starting before rawwwkkk “in 1965,” coupling the early albums in twos instead of reviewing them individually. This, however, does have the rewarding aspect for the reader of being able to devour in minute detail the car-crash releases since the mid-1970s. Apparently the 1992 album “Summer in Paradise” only shifted 1,000 units and the distributor went into liquidation! – that’s positively rsd/indie levels.

    Reading
    Old local newspapers.
    Beach Boys Uncut Special.
    “Swell,” a book about the history of swimming from a female perspective… WOOOOOOOOKKKKKKKKEEEEEEEEE-tastic… as I’m embarking on a book about female swimmers of the 1920s.

    Sport
    erm… football… the first friendly was on July 2nd!

    Cinema
    Not good this month. Had a chance to go to one or two foreign films but Test Cricket and the nice weather have made me lazy but…
    Get Carter – the very last time (1971) Michael Caine looked cool.
    Wild Men – an absolutely brilliant film about a man having a mid-life crisis in the Norwegian outback (if that is a thing) – very, very funny and not a little though-provoking. Very woke.

      • I’m going precisely nowhere near a copy to find out I’m right, but I am prepared to utter the words:

        (seriously – low voice – sarcastic) “Oh, but of course…”
        (ruffling your hair before bundling you and kicking you in the nuts) … “chiny reccckkkkon…”
        (high voice – stroking chin) “Jimmmeee!”

        Now I can’t say fairer than that.

        • A book on swimming from a female perspective? Man, that’s as unwoke as it gets right now. A therapist supervisee informed me the other day that she’d been shrieked at for wondering about swimming as an activity for a teenaged client. Swimming is deemed a fascist activity by some trans activists, it turns out, because the governing body, FINA, aren’t allowing trans women to compete against (deep breath) cis-women. We can try to minimise this, but it’s the area of ‘woke’ that Labour and the other opposition parties have got to address before the next election.

  12. Busy busy busy. After a two year drought, I have enjoyed three successive weekends of French dancing in Herefordshire, Denbighshire, Somerset and, er, a church hall on the edge of Chester. My back is not allowing me to dance all night as I would like, but the opportunities are too good to miss. Music excellent, whether it be Blowzabella or the expert amateurs who frequent these events. The scuzzy sound of a session is a taste that I have acquired – ambience and booze all being part of the arrangement – but the sessions I have witnessed over the last couple of weeks have been something else. Away with slightly out of key fiddles, or a dominating excess of melodeons; some impromptu sessions swelled with passion, instruments balanced in the arrangement, like a real rehearsed band. A joy to listen and to dance.

    Meanwhile, Middlewich Folk and Boat brought Wigan folk rockers Merry Hell down the M6, with their raucous social conscience. Middlewich is a very normal town, which gave an extra surreal quality to watching Manc spacerockers Henge give a bonkers performance in front of the Sunday afternoon beered up polo shirts and trackie bottoms. (I am not sneering, or if I am, I am sneering from inside the tent, easily falling into that description myself.) The festival closed on Sunday with the John Martyn Project. Seeing them for the third time in a year, but not tiring of them. The set seems to change each time, or maybe I’m always finding something new to hear, and they are certainly not slavish to the original. Joined them in the pub for the after show party and, the proof of the pudding, off mic, they are still astonishing performers.
    Middlewich F&B is not a key date in my calendar, but it has an advantage in that I can cycle home from it, which gets a thumbs up.
    If, together with my cycling in Scotland reported elsewhere, that all adds up to me having had more than the strict allocation of weekends normal in a month, that is just a measure of effective time management and my approach to living life.

  13. I don’t normally post on these threads, because I don’t have anywhere near as rich a cultural life as you all, but I found a way to watch iPlayer so as to catch the Glastonbury coverage (s’all right), and as the subs keep going for another 2 years, I thought I’d explore what’s there (after 18 years of UK tv drought). I binge watched over 4 nights both series of Outlaws. It was great escapist fun, kind of like a British Breaking Bad, but with a happy ending (sort of), and Bristol substituting for Albuquerque.

    Interrupting my endless attempt to finish a non fiction book before starting the next one (I bought two more by Danny Dorling and Mariana Mazzucato in Maastricht – I can’t help myself), I spent the week on the glamorous poundshop Death on the Nile stationary cruiser there reading Mystery of the Blue Train and Towards Zero, battered paperbacks from the book box in the square outside our flat. Agatha Christie wrote potboilers about her generation’s 1%/Footballers’ Wives, but they are undeniable page turners.

    Musically, I’ve been listening to 2raumwohnung with my 8 year old daughter, who now loves them alongside ABBA and NENA. But the band I’m really getting into now is Modest Mouse. Melodies, harmonies and a lot of raucous elements all thrown into the mix.

  14. Swimming! yes, it’s true, head over heels with this wild swimming malarkey, even now the waters of this nation turn from cold to tepid. The Trent is my oyster, along with various pools and ponds scattered about the territories I roam. A swoosh between Walton (on Trent) and Branston (yes, the home of) is a wondrous thing, the current doing some of the heavy lifting for the sake these aged arms. A pint never tasted so good afterwards.
    Listened: My reviewing has taken me further into the backwaters of Canadiana of late, with the bluegrass hoedowns of The Lucky Ones and the 80s shimmer jangle of the Tallies. I also discovered Jason McNiff, an exemplary picker and a protege/acolyte of Bert Jansch, should @colin-H be interested in checking out his largely covers album, Together We Ride. In Scottish music new solo disc from Manran singer Kim Carnie is out, proving a little too lush, with often over-egged strings. She made the mistake of employing Kate St John to arrange them, whereas she would have been so much better using Seonaid Aitken, the doyenne of chamber folk quartet arrangements. Who, by chance has a superb (largely, bar some ulululations) instrumental album out, Chasing Sakura. A mix of jazz, folk and classical, it is string quartet, bass and saxophone. Bridging gypsy jazz flavours, with swing and be-bop, nestled within pastoral sweeps of strings, it is quite glorious.
    Watched: Very little. Revisited Bodies, the early Jed Mercurio medical series, which was gallingly close to the bone, but without the humour of his Cardiac Arrest. Couldn’t be arsed with Glastonbury.
    Read: Nowt, really, just the comics.

  15. Bit late, as my train was held up at Covid junction..

    Read

    Last time I was in the middle of The Day Of The Triffids and enjoying it rather. I knew even from the bit of the tv adaptation I’d seen that there was a strong resemblance between the beginning of the Triffs and the opening scenes of the movie 28 Days Later, but it was only upon completing the book that I realised just how much (i.e. f***loads) Alex Garland’s script owed to Wyndham.

    To achieve notoriety from penning one novel about a middle aged man who pursues his interest in a pre-pubescent girl might be considered unfortunate..
    What I’m getting at is that I read The Enchanter, a novella by Vladimir Nabokov, (unpublished under his name in his lifetime) which, once again achieves the rather staggering feat of having you gag with disgust and at the same time laugh out loud as the narrator reveals his thoughts through mesmerising mastery of language.

    Seen

    RRR, on Netflix, is a stupendous rush of fabularama. It’s the action and spectacle extravaganza of the summer. Some of the CGI looks a bit feeble, but it still wins over its Hollywood competition when what are established as the two hardest men on Earth stop in the middle for a fantastic synchronised dance routine.
    Gotta say, you English don’t come out of it too well.

    On Taskmaster, I was startled to hear my boy Ardal being pulled up by the fearsome giant in charge for using the expression “birth cert”.
    I can’t recall the last time I heard anyone over here say the “-ificate” part aloud.
    Our big exams over here are called the Junior Cert and the Leaving Cert.
    You will find Education Department bureaucrats and certain teachers referring to them by their full titles, but I would compare it to the “esquire” appendage or people who spell phone as ‘phone..

    Before Glastonbury – all praise to the BBC iPlayer! – there was the Isle Of Wight festival, where the surprising highlight was Pete Tong Presents Ibiza Classics, where the man who is walking rhyming slang presided over his orchestra and a parade of guests performing crowd favourites.
    Top billing, of course, for the man whose initials are P.T.
    Notable that, at a festival where the senior Bez was reduced to freaky shuffling with knackered maracas, it was the superstar dj who looked most conspicuously superfluous on stage.
    At least throw a set of headphones around yer neck, ya wazzock!

    Series 3 of Barry, the comedy about a hitman who wants to be an actor, has taken what was a very entertaining show to the next level. The sixth episode, 710N, is one of the best individual tv episodes I’ve seen in years..
    In the interim between the first and second half of the last series of Better Call Saul and with that show’s last episode still vivid in my mind, it was quite the sight watching NoHo Hank patiently wait for someone to screw together the device he would use to blow a dart into his neck.
    Seeing that level of coincidence, I could be persuaded Dennis Leary did come up with all those Bill Hicks jokes independently.

    Heard

    And here’s the problem. As with last year, there’s plenty of decent music a flappin’ out there, but nothing so far has left the ground. Nice, though, that the new Gwenno doffs its cap to French football hero Marius Trésor

    AOB?

    Today, I discovered the word “swithering”.

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