The problem, for me at least, running a blog such as this which, increasingly but oddly, is attracting comparatively more readers, is that it becomes less and less personal. I don’t put the increase in readers down to any particular brilliant insights I might have – and, to be candid, I have none – but merely because, over time, I have touched upon quite a bit: Egypt, my cars, Francois Holland’s affairs, my breaks abroad, music – classical, jazz, rock and more or less everything else – food, and I don’t know what else. But as it started out as more of an online diary/commonplace book of the kind I kept for about 15 years – and which crucially no one is ever liable to read – it has crept away from that original intention. And for some odd reason that annoys me. But let me be candid again: I am also, for the usual reasons of vanity and ego, encouraged that I get comparatively more readers.
On the other hand I am no Jeremy Kyle candidate, I feel no desire whatsever to let it all hand out, to pass on to anyone who might happen this way my every thought, sentiment and feeling.
Every so often I come across other blogs, often because they are recommended by a friend, sometimes because I look at up at random what I come across. And I am not encouraged. None so far, or very few, but make that ‘none’ because there is none which I am enticed to return to for further delectation, has sparked my interest. It is, for example, quite instructive to look at how long a blog is sustained. Most, it seems, are started in a fit of enthusiasm, then slowly fade away as the writer loses interest.
Tonight after work I followed on of my usual patterns. I stopped off at a pub, in the case the ever so expensie Scarsdale in Kensington, for a drink and a cigar. And, as usual, as the alcohol hit my stomach, I got this thought and that and thought to myself ‘now that might be something to record’. There’s more of that on the short walk to my brother’s flat in Earls Court where I stay when I am up working in London. But invariably and inevitably each topic, each thought is forgotten – most usually – or discarded as of no interest to anyone. But there is one which might bear recording, although it will need a certain amount of discipline to record.
It is no paritularly original observation that we are all king or queen of our own world.
We are at the centre of everything. It is fashionable to claim that we are all ‘unique’, although in sense we are not. Yet in another sense we are: you, who is reading this, will have a unique take on the world. No one will ever see it throught your eyes. Unfortunately, no one particularly wants to: they are far more fascinated with themselves and seeing the world through their eyes. Yet I wager none of us realises as much. I do every so often, as I suppose you do, but it is not a particular kind thought. After all, as the cliché is, we all die alone.
When I first came to work in London, at the beginning of June 1990, I was not, as the horrible phrase is, ‘in a good place’. I was in the midst of yet another of the bouts of depression which have plagued me for most of my life, I was in debt, I had turned 40, I was going nowhere and I was – quite apart from the depression – fed up. And I came to London and the sheer size of the place made me feel utterly insignificant. But let me point out that feeling ‘insignificant’ was and is not the same was feeling ‘worthless’. It was just that I became very, very aware of what I have pointed out above: that we are all the king or queen of our own world, but that given the huge number of folk who lived in London, there was what seemed like an infinitesimal number of different worlds, each with its own king or queen, each of whom not only took not the slightest interst in me but, crucially, was not in the slightest obliged to do so.
Another cliché is that the more people that surround you, the lonelier you can feel. But I was also quite aware that I wasn’t the only one feeling like that, and, oddly, that comforted me, though admittedly not a great deal. But it was a curious kind of comfort.
These days I can walk through more or less the same streets I walked through then (by coincidence the first B&B in for several weeks when I worked my first shifts on the nationals is just around the corner) but I feel nothing of that insignificance.
Certainly, much has changed in my life. I am now married and have to children, and for that, however scratchy my married life might be on occasion (as, I should imagine, the married lives of others are) I am very grateful. But I can still feel an aspect of the insignificance: it is quite easy to call up a sensation that I – and you and he/she/it walking beside me, or laughing in the corner, or jumping on the bus over there, are as numerous as ants in one of the several million anthills around the world. It doesn’t bother me and it is more of an intellectual sensation than an emotional one.
To put it bluntly I am not in the slightest bit unhappy whereas in those years in the early 1990s I was just that. But I can’t ignore that fact that there are a great many people who are unhappy, and I feel both powerless to help them and irritated with myself that I take so much for granted.
So far, so much of a ramble. Yet it is something I have wanted to write for a while (thought whether or not it is of any interest to you is another matter).
One of the thoughts which occurred to me earlier on was when I was musing on idealism. Is it really such a waste of time? Most certainly as the world over children are born and grow up there will be an never-ending supply of idealists, and for that I thank God.
We need idealists, but just how many idealists are there in, say, Gaza, Syria, Northern Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, the sink estates of Britain and ‘affluent’ Europe, in New Orleans, in the favela of Brazil, in rural India and Pakistan, in Burma, in the Tamil parts of Sri Lanka, in Alaska, in the Aboriginal parts of Australia? Can we really blame the folk there for getting more cynical by the hour? Yet even in those parts and many others there will be young folk hoping – I daren’t same ‘dreaming’ for I eschew cliches, but I should like to – that life might, just might get better.
I have no idea where this entry came from and where it is heading. But what I shall say, and how I shall conclude it, is that the greatest treasure of all is our young. You who is reading this might be 18, 28, 48 or 78. Depending upon your age your reaction might be different. But if you are young, let me end by saying this: keep on dreaming. Aint’ nothing wrong with that. But also be practical. Don’t just dream, think how you might achieve those dreams. God bless.
End of sermon.
. . .
Barack Obama is now in his second term as U.S. president and can’t stand again, but as sure as eggs is eggs he will want whoever stands for the Democrats to beat whoever stands for the Republicans in the coming elections. So he’s talking tough (and no one can’t talk quite as well as Barack). Thus we have his sanctions against Russia over its alleged – thought most certainly very likely – support for the Ukrainian separatists. And the EU, still struggling to be taken seriously as a ‘world player’, has today topped those sanctions with ‘hard-hitting sanctions of its own. But all I can do is wonder: who the hell is doing any thinking?
Do the U.S. and the EU really think that boxing Russia into a corner will ‘bring them to heel’? From where I sit and pontificate that’s about as likely as me winning Miss America 2015.
I’ve just heard a former British ambassador to Moscow speaking on BBC 2’s Newsnight he thinks the latest action is a disaster. Sir Tony Brenton pointed out that Vladimir Putin has almost unprecedented support in Russia and is seen as a hero for defending his country agains the nasty West, and is thus politically stymied were he ever to appear ‘weak’ by caving into the sanctions.
Sir Tony counsels dialogue, and all I can say is amen to that. But I suspect that is not how Obama and the idiots running the EU see it. I also suspect that their actions are being clouded by agenda of their own, the successful re-elction of a Democrat as president in the U.S. and establishing the EU as a ‘world player’ in Brussels.
Sir Tony believes that Putin must be given the opportunity to save face in Russia and be able to present whatever the outcome of this crisis is as a success. Boxing him into a corner will not do that. We here in the West also want to be seen as ‘coming out on top’, hence all this macho willy waving. Is there no end to the stupidity of our politicians? Do you know, I don’t think there is.
Wednesday 30 July 2014
Saturday 26 July 2014
Why are so many Ukrainians and Russians interested in Francois Hollande’s shagging? And is La Gayet about to make an honest man of him? Then there’s John O’Hara, who can write the pants of many a modern novelist and (for what seems like the umpteenth time) I plug MY novel. Go on, bloody buy it, I’ve got a cigar habit to keep up
The statistics on for this blog provided by Google (for free, which makes me rather ashamed of my perpetual griping about Google’s highhandedness and the sheer impossibility of ever getting in touch with someone at Google. Still, I’ll carry on whingeing) make interesting, if somewhat baffling reading.
Among other things - what platform they are on when viewing this blog, which browser they are using, whether they are toking up while viewing, that kind of thing - it tells me which posts have most been visited today, this week, this month etc, and where the ‘audience is’.
The odd thing is that consistently the most popular entry since I posted it has been the one in which I managed to establish beyond all doubt - you never lose that old reporter’s instinct, ever - that Francios Hollande, usually described as ‘France’s current president’, does after have a working male member and had been two-timing his then current squeeze Valerie Rottweiler with an actress Fifi la Chance (professional name Julie Gayet).
That was in January, and that post has been visited 184 times over the past 30 days, 96 more than the next most popular entry in the past month in which I extolled the guitar-playing, singing and song-writing of one Jeff Lang, usually described as ‘an Australian’.
The second interesting statistic is that my blog has been attracting a great deal more interest from folk in the Ukraine and Russia. Certainly, they will have been seeking out the platitudes I have been publishing about the comings and goings in the Ukraine and Crimea, but as my musings are, I must be honest, in no way original and now out of date, I do wonder what exactly is attracting their - it has to be said - continuing interest. Are they, too, fascinated - as I am most certainly not - by Hollande’s sex life? Sadly there is no way of knowing what they are looking at. So if anyone in the Ukraine and Russia would care to email me outlining just what it is that attracts them to reading this blog, I would be pleased.
For those who are still taking an interest in the Hollande/Gayet affair, the rumour going the rounds is that he is about to pop the question, apparently, according to the French scandal sheet Closer which first revealed the affair, on August 12 Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail have both seen fit to report it (though they make no connections at all with that day also been the official start of this year’s wholesale slaughter of grouse in Scotland).
Or as Francois Hollande undoubtedly seems them:
. . .
While on my break in France, which took in five concerts and three glorious meals (quite apart from the very tasty food my aunt prepares) I also finished reading a novel I bought over a year ago and which I can recommend wholeheartedly. It is Appointment In Samara by John O’Hara. On the strength of it I have since ordered Butterfield 8, of which later a heavily sanitised film was made starring Elizabeth Taylor (which has not yet arrived) and a collection of his ‘New York stories’ which arrived a few days ago. O’Hara also wrote a novel called Pal Joey on which the musical of the same name was based.
He was by all accounts a complex man. He started life as a reporter, then as a magazine writer, but almost from the start he had set his mind on becoming a full-time writer and unlike some (i.e. me) put his money, as well as his time and undoubted talent, where his mouth was. It’s odd that although I’m sure many American visitors to this blog have heard of him, we here in Europe are far more familiar with the names of two of his contemporaries, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald than with the name John O’Hara. Yet his output was prodigious. Hemingway rated him as does (did? Didn’t he recently die?) John Updike. Other critics are more sniffy, and, oddly, that rather encourages me.
So far I have only read the one novel, but as far as I am concerned he can write the pants of many other more modern writers. It seems part of the sniffiness was that he was said to be ‘impossible’ to deal with and was a lifelong alcoholic forever picking fights in bars. Well, who cares?
So far I have merely read the introduction to the short story collections by E.L. Doctorow (of whose work I have read several novels) and by the man who edited them. And it’s now time for an admission: it is becoming increasingly obvious to me that I am essentially a flaneur, and, as the joke goes, ‘not in a good way’.
What is usually commented on is O’Hara’s ear for naturalistic dialogue - that is, he characters speak to each other as we all speak to each other. It always pisses me off when I pick up a modern novel (or more likely hear one read on Radio 4’s Book At Bedtime) and hear characters addressing each other as though they were characters in a novel.
‘Aldous sighed. “But don’t you think, Cressida, that our lives together have now reached a sort of kind of, kind of sort of arctic impasse, that the thread which once bound us together in a sort of kind of, kind of sort of self-conscious nexus of conflicting obligations is fraying by the day?” ’
To which Cressida replies:
“Oh, Aldy, my darling Aldy, I’m so very bored with your eternal compulsive analysis of our marriage and your insistent demand that I should sort of kind of, kind of sort live my life as though I were, in a sense, the very embodiment of a modern woman, a template for your stale and ancient masculine rigour!”
What Cressida should, in fact, have said is:
“Fuck off, Aldous, you pretentious git!”. But, of course, she won’t, well not in a British novel, anyway.
At the moment the Book At Bedtime is The Miniaturist by one Jessie Burton and what I have so far heard is just terrible. Set in 17th-century merchant class Holland a young, feisty - and apparently feminist - 18-year-old is gets married to a rich man several years older who - this is a moden novel, of course, is gay, an orientation which doesn’t go down in 17th-century merchant class Holland, so he is well in the closet. That very brief outline, of course, might well describe a novel which in the event is very good. But Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist most certainly isn’t it.
I read that the manuscript was hawked around by an agent and caused a ‘bidding war’ between various publishers. Well, perhaps, but what is most certainly true is when news of that ‘bidding war’ ‘leaked out’ - oh, those damn leaks! - it will have done future sales no end of good. Give me Mr O’Hara any day of the week.
. . .
I have before used this blog to plug my novel, with so far zilch effect. So I hope it might attract some of you to visit Amazon and buy a copy (or download it to your Kindle if you are a skinflint) if I tell you that it is something of a gentle satire of all that overwrought packed-with-emotion bollocks. Go on, try it and make my fortune (though I’m really not holding my breath). I can, at least, assure you that all the commas are in the right place as well as quite a few artistically relevant semi-colons. Oh, and there are several jokes, but I like to think they are not at all obvious.
It’s called Love: A Fiction. Go on, spoil yourselves.
Among other things - what platform they are on when viewing this blog, which browser they are using, whether they are toking up while viewing, that kind of thing - it tells me which posts have most been visited today, this week, this month etc, and where the ‘audience is’.
The odd thing is that consistently the most popular entry since I posted it has been the one in which I managed to establish beyond all doubt - you never lose that old reporter’s instinct, ever - that Francios Hollande, usually described as ‘France’s current president’, does after have a working male member and had been two-timing his then current squeeze Valerie Rottweiler with an actress Fifi la Chance (professional name Julie Gayet).
That was in January, and that post has been visited 184 times over the past 30 days, 96 more than the next most popular entry in the past month in which I extolled the guitar-playing, singing and song-writing of one Jeff Lang, usually described as ‘an Australian’.
The second interesting statistic is that my blog has been attracting a great deal more interest from folk in the Ukraine and Russia. Certainly, they will have been seeking out the platitudes I have been publishing about the comings and goings in the Ukraine and Crimea, but as my musings are, I must be honest, in no way original and now out of date, I do wonder what exactly is attracting their - it has to be said - continuing interest. Are they, too, fascinated - as I am most certainly not - by Hollande’s sex life? Sadly there is no way of knowing what they are looking at. So if anyone in the Ukraine and Russia would care to email me outlining just what it is that attracts them to reading this blog, I would be pleased.
For those who are still taking an interest in the Hollande/Gayet affair, the rumour going the rounds is that he is about to pop the question, apparently, according to the French scandal sheet Closer which first revealed the affair, on August 12 Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail have both seen fit to report it (though they make no connections at all with that day also been the official start of this year’s wholesale slaughter of grouse in Scotland).
The Happy Couple.
Or as Francois Hollande undoubtedly seems them:. . .
While on my break in France, which took in five concerts and three glorious meals (quite apart from the very tasty food my aunt prepares) I also finished reading a novel I bought over a year ago and which I can recommend wholeheartedly. It is Appointment In Samara by John O’Hara. On the strength of it I have since ordered Butterfield 8, of which later a heavily sanitised film was made starring Elizabeth Taylor (which has not yet arrived) and a collection of his ‘New York stories’ which arrived a few days ago. O’Hara also wrote a novel called Pal Joey on which the musical of the same name was based.
He was by all accounts a complex man. He started life as a reporter, then as a magazine writer, but almost from the start he had set his mind on becoming a full-time writer and unlike some (i.e. me) put his money, as well as his time and undoubted talent, where his mouth was. It’s odd that although I’m sure many American visitors to this blog have heard of him, we here in Europe are far more familiar with the names of two of his contemporaries, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald than with the name John O’Hara. Yet his output was prodigious. Hemingway rated him as does (did? Didn’t he recently die?) John Updike. Other critics are more sniffy, and, oddly, that rather encourages me.
So far I have only read the one novel, but as far as I am concerned he can write the pants of many other more modern writers. It seems part of the sniffiness was that he was said to be ‘impossible’ to deal with and was a lifelong alcoholic forever picking fights in bars. Well, who cares?
So far I have merely read the introduction to the short story collections by E.L. Doctorow (of whose work I have read several novels) and by the man who edited them. And it’s now time for an admission: it is becoming increasingly obvious to me that I am essentially a flaneur, and, as the joke goes, ‘not in a good way’.
What is usually commented on is O’Hara’s ear for naturalistic dialogue - that is, he characters speak to each other as we all speak to each other. It always pisses me off when I pick up a modern novel (or more likely hear one read on Radio 4’s Book At Bedtime) and hear characters addressing each other as though they were characters in a novel.
‘Aldous sighed. “But don’t you think, Cressida, that our lives together have now reached a sort of kind of, kind of sort of arctic impasse, that the thread which once bound us together in a sort of kind of, kind of sort of self-conscious nexus of conflicting obligations is fraying by the day?” ’
To which Cressida replies:
“Oh, Aldy, my darling Aldy, I’m so very bored with your eternal compulsive analysis of our marriage and your insistent demand that I should sort of kind of, kind of sort live my life as though I were, in a sense, the very embodiment of a modern woman, a template for your stale and ancient masculine rigour!”
What Cressida should, in fact, have said is:
“Fuck off, Aldous, you pretentious git!”. But, of course, she won’t, well not in a British novel, anyway.
At the moment the Book At Bedtime is The Miniaturist by one Jessie Burton and what I have so far heard is just terrible. Set in 17th-century merchant class Holland a young, feisty - and apparently feminist - 18-year-old is gets married to a rich man several years older who - this is a moden novel, of course, is gay, an orientation which doesn’t go down in 17th-century merchant class Holland, so he is well in the closet. That very brief outline, of course, might well describe a novel which in the event is very good. But Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist most certainly isn’t it.
I read that the manuscript was hawked around by an agent and caused a ‘bidding war’ between various publishers. Well, perhaps, but what is most certainly true is when news of that ‘bidding war’ ‘leaked out’ - oh, those damn leaks! - it will have done future sales no end of good. Give me Mr O’Hara any day of the week.
. . .
I have before used this blog to plug my novel, with so far zilch effect. So I hope it might attract some of you to visit Amazon and buy a copy (or download it to your Kindle if you are a skinflint) if I tell you that it is something of a gentle satire of all that overwrought packed-with-emotion bollocks. Go on, try it and make my fortune (though I’m really not holding my breath). I can, at least, assure you that all the commas are in the right place as well as quite a few artistically relevant semi-colons. Oh, and there are several jokes, but I like to think they are not at all obvious.
It’s called Love: A Fiction. Go on, spoil yourselves.
Thursday 24 July 2014
Lay off Israel (and beware those who think in primary colours)
I might come out of my comfort zone here and upset a lot of people, but listening once again to a report on the trouble in Gaza, I’ve decided to add my two ha’porth worth.
The popular sentiment is on the side of the Palestinians in Gaza and so, by a rather cynical default, with Hamas. Thus Israel is inevitably cast in the role of ‘bad guy’. If only it were all so reassuringly simple.
I think the first mistake is to imagine there are only two protagonists here. The way I see it, there are three and possibly even four: the Palestinians living in Gaza, Hamas, Israel and Egypt. Specifically, I believe we should query whether Hamas is operating in the best interests of everyone else living in Gaza or, as I have come to believe, is pursuing its own agenda at whatever the human cost knowing full well that once again it is Israel which looks bad.
I don’t here want to go into the ‘rights and wrongs’ of the original establishment of Israel, primarily because I don’t believe there are any ‘rights and wrongs’. As much for political reasons as for anything else the state of Israel was established in 1948 and is now a political fact. And undeniably the Israeli approach to building a country and a strong economy proved to be a lot more effective than that of any other people who had occupied that part of the world. Incidentally, and contentiously - especially in view of what I have already written and shall be writing later on - I don’t buy into this notion that ‘Israel’ was and is the birthright of Jews throughout the world.
Few peoples have been as abysmally treated for the past 2,000 years as the Jews and they have been dispersed throughout the world. But I simply don’t agree that the land that is now Israel should always have been ‘theirs’. It most certainly is now, and I back them up to the hilt in their right and duty to defend themselves and their country. If anyone is to blame for the current chronic crisis in what was once known as Palestine and the surrounding land it is the British who, still operating in imperial mode, simply decreed the state of Israel and to hell with the rights of the folk who were already living there, the Palestinians. And that decree was essentially political.
But even writing that I, too, am straying rather dangerously into primary colours territory. In fact the campaign to have a state of Israel established had begun decades earlier and finally establishing the state was part of complex nexus of obligations and alliances. It wasn’t as though the British decided to do Israel a favour - it might well have been just to get the Stern Gang off their backs.
There is a great deal the Israelis should arguably not be doing: they, too, are at times behaving in imperial mode when they found ever more settlements on ‘occupied land’. I stick that in inverted commas because it, too, is a contentious issue. Israel gained that land after it was invaded - let me stress, it did not start the fight - and quite apart from seeing off the invaders, managed to grab some of their land.
It’s been happening throughout history: California and Texas were acquired on the same basis, but no one in their right mind is demanding that the U.S. returns the states to Mexico who had it before them. But, of course, it wouldn’t stop there: Mexico also took over the land from Native Americans - should it be handed back to them? But the state of Israel is a political fact and - this is crucial - unlike any of the countries that surround it, it is a fully functioning democracy with the rule of law.
What to make of Hamas? Well, I can only go by news reports - as is true of you reading this - and I am struck by just how cynically it is fighting this war: no one seems to be castigating Hamas for using hospitals and schools from which to launch its missiles and as human shields. In fact the boot is very much on the other foot with the bien pensant of the Western world falling over themselves to justify the group’s actions. Let me finish this with a question to all those criticising Israel for the means it has chosen to defend itself: what would you do if you came under attack?
Finally, and very reluctantly, I must admit that I feel I detect more than a trace of latent anti-semitism in the criticism of Israel. You can only believe me when I tell you that I find anti-semitism incomprehensible (rather like I find Chinese, Japanese and Urdu incomprehensible), but there is most certainly plenty of it around and most certainly, whether consciously or not, a great many folk are using the crisis in Gaza to indulge in yet a little more.
Then there is Egypt: I didn’t hear any of the voices now castigating Israel over how it is reacting in Gaze protesting when President Morsi was removed in an army coup. And I don’t hear any of those voices also protesting that the new regime in Egypt is yet another military dictatorship. Egypt, in fact, is no friend of Hamas, whose sympathies are with the Muslim Brotherhood. So Egypt will be rather pleased that Israel has had to take on the dirty work of neutralising Hamas.
As I say, these things are really not at all as simply as Hamas in White Hats and Israel in the Black Hat. Not that most prejudiced folk will care, of course.
NB Reading over the above, I do feel I could well have tried to express myself more subtly. But there you have it: however crude and rough-edged my reasoning, what I have written above represents what I believe. But I’ll repeat: there really are no ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ in this one and beware anyone who tries to persuade you otherwise (usually by shouting you down, and that is never a good sign).
I think the first mistake is to imagine there are only two protagonists here. The way I see it, there are three and possibly even four: the Palestinians living in Gaza, Hamas, Israel and Egypt. Specifically, I believe we should query whether Hamas is operating in the best interests of everyone else living in Gaza or, as I have come to believe, is pursuing its own agenda at whatever the human cost knowing full well that once again it is Israel which looks bad.
I don’t here want to go into the ‘rights and wrongs’ of the original establishment of Israel, primarily because I don’t believe there are any ‘rights and wrongs’. As much for political reasons as for anything else the state of Israel was established in 1948 and is now a political fact. And undeniably the Israeli approach to building a country and a strong economy proved to be a lot more effective than that of any other people who had occupied that part of the world. Incidentally, and contentiously - especially in view of what I have already written and shall be writing later on - I don’t buy into this notion that ‘Israel’ was and is the birthright of Jews throughout the world.
Few peoples have been as abysmally treated for the past 2,000 years as the Jews and they have been dispersed throughout the world. But I simply don’t agree that the land that is now Israel should always have been ‘theirs’. It most certainly is now, and I back them up to the hilt in their right and duty to defend themselves and their country. If anyone is to blame for the current chronic crisis in what was once known as Palestine and the surrounding land it is the British who, still operating in imperial mode, simply decreed the state of Israel and to hell with the rights of the folk who were already living there, the Palestinians. And that decree was essentially political.
But even writing that I, too, am straying rather dangerously into primary colours territory. In fact the campaign to have a state of Israel established had begun decades earlier and finally establishing the state was part of complex nexus of obligations and alliances. It wasn’t as though the British decided to do Israel a favour - it might well have been just to get the Stern Gang off their backs.
There is a great deal the Israelis should arguably not be doing: they, too, are at times behaving in imperial mode when they found ever more settlements on ‘occupied land’. I stick that in inverted commas because it, too, is a contentious issue. Israel gained that land after it was invaded - let me stress, it did not start the fight - and quite apart from seeing off the invaders, managed to grab some of their land.
It’s been happening throughout history: California and Texas were acquired on the same basis, but no one in their right mind is demanding that the U.S. returns the states to Mexico who had it before them. But, of course, it wouldn’t stop there: Mexico also took over the land from Native Americans - should it be handed back to them? But the state of Israel is a political fact and - this is crucial - unlike any of the countries that surround it, it is a fully functioning democracy with the rule of law.
What to make of Hamas? Well, I can only go by news reports - as is true of you reading this - and I am struck by just how cynically it is fighting this war: no one seems to be castigating Hamas for using hospitals and schools from which to launch its missiles and as human shields. In fact the boot is very much on the other foot with the bien pensant of the Western world falling over themselves to justify the group’s actions. Let me finish this with a question to all those criticising Israel for the means it has chosen to defend itself: what would you do if you came under attack?
Finally, and very reluctantly, I must admit that I feel I detect more than a trace of latent anti-semitism in the criticism of Israel. You can only believe me when I tell you that I find anti-semitism incomprehensible (rather like I find Chinese, Japanese and Urdu incomprehensible), but there is most certainly plenty of it around and most certainly, whether consciously or not, a great many folk are using the crisis in Gaza to indulge in yet a little more.
Then there is Egypt: I didn’t hear any of the voices now castigating Israel over how it is reacting in Gaze protesting when President Morsi was removed in an army coup. And I don’t hear any of those voices also protesting that the new regime in Egypt is yet another military dictatorship. Egypt, in fact, is no friend of Hamas, whose sympathies are with the Muslim Brotherhood. So Egypt will be rather pleased that Israel has had to take on the dirty work of neutralising Hamas.
As I say, these things are really not at all as simply as Hamas in White Hats and Israel in the Black Hat. Not that most prejudiced folk will care, of course.
NB Reading over the above, I do feel I could well have tried to express myself more subtly. But there you have it: however crude and rough-edged my reasoning, what I have written above represents what I believe. But I’ll repeat: there really are no ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ in this one and beware anyone who tries to persuade you otherwise (usually by shouting you down, and that is never a good sign).
Wednesday 23 July 2014
Several concerts, several good meals and two deaths (RIP Marjorie Deschaux née Hirst and Paul Rogers)
Not yet scribbled anything about my break - ongoing, I don’t fly off until the day after tomorrow - break in South-West France to accompany my aunt to a few concerts.
To recap, this part of the world holds three classical music festivals every year, all (I think) with a slightly different theme. I arrived last Wednesday, and that night it was off to the Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte for a concert by Maxim Vengerov, except that the great man himself didn’t show. He was ill and couldn’t attend/wasn’t ill but couldn’t attend depending upon who you asked. His place Zorin (whose father Zachary helps to organise this particular festival) who played a Beethoven sonata for violin and piano (rather raggedly in my, admittedly, utterly untutored opinion, i.e. ignore what I have just said), then far more recent pieces by, I think - announcements were in French, of which I know less than I know Chinese - Ravel and a few of his contemporaries.
It was obvious, to me at least, that Zorin was far more at home in the jazzier style of early 20th-century French music than in classical early 19th-century German music. Trouble is, of course, that I know less than nothing about it and could well be talking balls. (Yanks: balls)
Then there were no more concerts until Monday night when we went to the smaller Chateau Gravas (which produces Sauternes) for a concert given by a double-bass player called Remy Yulzari and a guitarist called Nadav Lev. Maxim Zorin was also due to play with them, but he failed to show up until more or less towards the end and then played only two pieces as a trio before the concert closed. I have to say I preferred the music the two others played together before Zorin turned up.
Last night it was back to Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte for another concert of pieces for violin and piano, with a buxom Swiss redhead called Rachel Kolly d’Alba (pictured) on the fiddle and Marc Laforet on the joanna playing sonatas by
Debussy, Ravel and Franck and Franz Waxman’s Carmen Fantaisie, which I’m told is a popular concert favourite and very well known, which might explain why I’d never heard of it.
I liked the Ravel best, and thinking of all the other Ravel pieces I’ve heard, many of which I have on my iPod, I yet again laugh when you mention Ravel, everyone and his dog thinks of his Bolero (‘I’m not really one for serious music, but I do love what’s-his-name’s Bolero, you know, tum-ta-ta-ta-ta tum ta-ta-ta-ta, tum-ta-ta-ta-ta tum ta-ta-ta-ta, doooooooooo, do-do do-do do-do due do-do doooooooo, that’s probably not quite the tune, but you know the one I mean, they play it on Radio 2 quite a lot . . . I mean, who could think serious music could be so catchy?’).
Ironically, Ravel himself didn’t take it very seriously and is quoted as saying ‘I have written a masterpiece. Unfortunately, there is no music in it.’ (Incidentally, if I have just described you, the kind of chap or chappess who likes his or her serious music lite, there is a list of Ten Things You Never Knew About Ravel’s Bolero, inevitably in the Daily Mail. If all that makes me sound snobbish, tough titties. I suggest you listen to other pieces of Ravel, and it might well - with a bit of luck - stop you claiming Ravel is your ‘favourite classical composer’.)
Tonight it’s something or other somewhere or other and tomorrow its’ something else or other in Saint-Emilion (you’ll know the name from the wine department at your local superstore). BTW I just looked it up on Google Maps to see whether it was spelled St or Saint and, not for the first time, noticed the the city of Bordeaux is nowhere to be seen. Here are three screens of the map. Question: where’s Bordeaux?
Bordeaux - but why not say so?
. . .
Been a couple of deaths recently.
My aunt was very good friends with a former colleague at Bordeaux University where they had both taught different aspect of English. I met her several times, five I think, as my aunt used to see her every Tuesday at her home in a suburb of Bordeaux after her gym class every Tuesday and they had lunch together somewhere or other, and I went with her whenever I was staying.
She was a very engaging Liverpudlian woman, ten years older than my aunt, who had married a French air force officer after the war and had lived in France ever since. I say Liverpudlian, but she was, in fact Scottish and very proud of it, but had grown up in Liverpool and there were still traces of Merseyside in her accent. Her health had been failing for years and she had very little energy, so the past few times I saw her, we only had a drink at her house. She was very fond of the Daily Mail, and because she could received BBC on her satellite TV, she was a great fan of Top Gear and Jeremy Clarkson.
She died a week ago last Monday and was cremated yesterday. My aunt then treated me to a very, very nice lunch at a place called Le Chalet Lyrique, and then we went to her house where we had been invited to take whatever books we wanted. Unfortunately, she almost exclusively read biographies and autobiographies.
In her various bookshelves there were at least 700 of them and I jotted down the titles of a few list here. In addition to what might be thought the ‘obvious’ biographies and autobiographies to have - Bill Clinton’s, his wife Hilary’s, Margaret Thatcher’s and Tony Blair’s - there was also The Billy Butlin Story, Walk-on Part In A Goldfish Bowl (Carol Thatcher), Life In The Farce Lane (Brian Rix), High Hopes (Ronnie Corbett), Don’t Make Me Laugh (Norman Wisdom), My World Is My Bond (Roger Moore), three by Kate Adie, six by Jeremy Clarkson (surely not all autobiographies, though I didn’t check), and autobiographies by Stella Rimmington, Liam Neeson, David Niven, John Simpson and Joanna Lumley.
According to my aunt, her friend wasn’t one for literature despite her job teaching English (in her case linguistics, she utterly defeated me for the few months it was part of my course at Dundee. In fact, had it not been deleted from the course for some reason, I would have failed my degree in English by an even greater margin than I eventually did. I did actually get a degree - I sat for an Honours, but was given an Ordinary - because, I was told, I had done rather well in Philosophy and the department insisted I get at least something however angry the English department were with me for wasting their time completely and utterly.)
I took just five, as far as I was concerned the only worthwhile five of the lot: Last Of The Hotel Metal Men (Derek Jameson), Memoirs (Kingsley Amis), Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This (a biography by Marion Meade), At War With Waugh: The Real Story Of Scoop (Bill Deedes), and Gertrude And Alice (a biography of Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas by Diana Souham. I suspect I am something of a closet lesbian).
RIP Marjorie Deschaux (née Hirst).
. . .
Then there was the surprise death of one Paul Rogers who has previously been mentioned in the blog. Paul was one of the guys I got to know over these past few years when I stopped off at The Brewer’s Arms in South Petherton, Somerset, on my way home from London to Cornwall every Wednesday night, for a pint or three of cider, a cigar and to watch the second half of whatever Champion’s League match was showing.
When we first got chatting, it would seem Paul, then a just retired social worker (I suspect he was a little younger than me, but could retire early because he was a civil servant), seemed to be the tub-thumping leftie and I, given my restrained view on most things (except idiots who think Ravel’s Bolero is the pinnacle of musical achievement), the Tory.
Over the following months and in many conversations about this that and t’other it slowly became obvious that I was something of a leftie and Paul rather further to the right than he might have thought he was. Latterly, he admitted voting UKIP in the EU elections. I didn’t.
I stopped off at the pub a few Wednesday’s ago and while we were chatting, Paul said he would be at his caravan in Cornwall where he also keeps a small dinghy the following week and did I want to meet up for a drink? I did, and we settled upon meeting up on the Saturday at The Rashleigh Arms in Charlestown, just outside St Austell.
It was a pleasant drink and we chatted about all the things we usually chatted about, and then when it was time to leave, I said I would like to have a look at the old harbour (the set for many a film about 17th/18th/19th seagoing) and would he like to go along. He said, yes, but to my surprise added ‘but not to the bottom’. I was surprised because it really wasn’t far at all, but put his reluctance down to a rather long coughing fit he had just concluded.
Off we went when, after about three minutes he stopped and said he felt dizzy and not very well at all. We then stood there for about ten minutes - after a few minutes he sat down - before he felt well enough to return to his car.
On the way back, we had to stop again because he still felt awful. Back at his car he took out an angina spray, to my surprise, because I had no idea he suffered from angina. Then he took out another inhaler which he told me was for ‘pulmonary congestion’. That he suffered congestion was also news to me. I offered to drive him back to his caravan and pick up my car later, but he would have none of it, and finally drove off. About an hour later I received a text thanking me for standing him lunch and saying he had returned safely.
He was due to return to Somerset the following Thursday, but on that day, the manageress of the caravan site he was using was surprised to see his car still there by lunchtime as he had told her he would be leaving early in the morning. She got no reply from banging on his caravan door, called the police, they broke in and found him dead.
When I heard the news (the publican in South Petherton who knew we were friends got in touch to tell me), I assumed he had suffered a fatal heart attack, but I have since heard from his daughter that, thankfully, he ‘died in his sleep’ because he couldn’t get enough oxygen. Whether it was the painless death that phrase implies is another matter, of course. I, who dreams a great deal (and loves dreaming) can well imagine that you dream you are choking and unable to breath simply because you are unable to breath. And then you die. But I hope it was painless. Oh, and he also introduced me to the rather good music of Jack Lang which I mentioned here.
RIP Paul Rogers.
. . .
Just for the craic ... I posted this photo on Facebook with absolutely no response whatsover, so I’ll try my luck here. The caption is the same. It relates to the Great Liberation of Hibernia (also known as the Scottish independence referendum) due on September 18 - just 58 days away. Oooooh!
To recap, this part of the world holds three classical music festivals every year, all (I think) with a slightly different theme. I arrived last Wednesday, and that night it was off to the Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte for a concert by Maxim Vengerov, except that the great man himself didn’t show. He was ill and couldn’t attend/wasn’t ill but couldn’t attend depending upon who you asked. His place Zorin (whose father Zachary helps to organise this particular festival) who played a Beethoven sonata for violin and piano (rather raggedly in my, admittedly, utterly untutored opinion, i.e. ignore what I have just said), then far more recent pieces by, I think - announcements were in French, of which I know less than I know Chinese - Ravel and a few of his contemporaries.
It was obvious, to me at least, that Zorin was far more at home in the jazzier style of early 20th-century French music than in classical early 19th-century German music. Trouble is, of course, that I know less than nothing about it and could well be talking balls. (Yanks: balls)
Then there were no more concerts until Monday night when we went to the smaller Chateau Gravas (which produces Sauternes) for a concert given by a double-bass player called Remy Yulzari and a guitarist called Nadav Lev. Maxim Zorin was also due to play with them, but he failed to show up until more or less towards the end and then played only two pieces as a trio before the concert closed. I have to say I preferred the music the two others played together before Zorin turned up.
Last night it was back to Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte for another concert of pieces for violin and piano, with a buxom Swiss redhead called Rachel Kolly d’Alba (pictured) on the fiddle and Marc Laforet on the joanna playing sonatas by
I liked the Ravel best, and thinking of all the other Ravel pieces I’ve heard, many of which I have on my iPod, I yet again laugh when you mention Ravel, everyone and his dog thinks of his Bolero (‘I’m not really one for serious music, but I do love what’s-his-name’s Bolero, you know, tum-ta-ta-ta-ta tum ta-ta-ta-ta, tum-ta-ta-ta-ta tum ta-ta-ta-ta, doooooooooo, do-do do-do do-do due do-do doooooooo, that’s probably not quite the tune, but you know the one I mean, they play it on Radio 2 quite a lot . . . I mean, who could think serious music could be so catchy?’).
Ironically, Ravel himself didn’t take it very seriously and is quoted as saying ‘I have written a masterpiece. Unfortunately, there is no music in it.’ (Incidentally, if I have just described you, the kind of chap or chappess who likes his or her serious music lite, there is a list of Ten Things You Never Knew About Ravel’s Bolero, inevitably in the Daily Mail. If all that makes me sound snobbish, tough titties. I suggest you listen to other pieces of Ravel, and it might well - with a bit of luck - stop you claiming Ravel is your ‘favourite classical composer’.)
Tonight it’s something or other somewhere or other and tomorrow its’ something else or other in Saint-Emilion (you’ll know the name from the wine department at your local superstore). BTW I just looked it up on Google Maps to see whether it was spelled St or Saint and, not for the first time, noticed the the city of Bordeaux is nowhere to be seen. Here are three screens of the map. Question: where’s Bordeaux?
Good Lord, it's disappeared
If you look really carefully, you'll see it's just left of Merignac
. . .
Been a couple of deaths recently.
My aunt was very good friends with a former colleague at Bordeaux University where they had both taught different aspect of English. I met her several times, five I think, as my aunt used to see her every Tuesday at her home in a suburb of Bordeaux after her gym class every Tuesday and they had lunch together somewhere or other, and I went with her whenever I was staying.
She was a very engaging Liverpudlian woman, ten years older than my aunt, who had married a French air force officer after the war and had lived in France ever since. I say Liverpudlian, but she was, in fact Scottish and very proud of it, but had grown up in Liverpool and there were still traces of Merseyside in her accent. Her health had been failing for years and she had very little energy, so the past few times I saw her, we only had a drink at her house. She was very fond of the Daily Mail, and because she could received BBC on her satellite TV, she was a great fan of Top Gear and Jeremy Clarkson.
She died a week ago last Monday and was cremated yesterday. My aunt then treated me to a very, very nice lunch at a place called Le Chalet Lyrique, and then we went to her house where we had been invited to take whatever books we wanted. Unfortunately, she almost exclusively read biographies and autobiographies.
In her various bookshelves there were at least 700 of them and I jotted down the titles of a few list here. In addition to what might be thought the ‘obvious’ biographies and autobiographies to have - Bill Clinton’s, his wife Hilary’s, Margaret Thatcher’s and Tony Blair’s - there was also The Billy Butlin Story, Walk-on Part In A Goldfish Bowl (Carol Thatcher), Life In The Farce Lane (Brian Rix), High Hopes (Ronnie Corbett), Don’t Make Me Laugh (Norman Wisdom), My World Is My Bond (Roger Moore), three by Kate Adie, six by Jeremy Clarkson (surely not all autobiographies, though I didn’t check), and autobiographies by Stella Rimmington, Liam Neeson, David Niven, John Simpson and Joanna Lumley.
According to my aunt, her friend wasn’t one for literature despite her job teaching English (in her case linguistics, she utterly defeated me for the few months it was part of my course at Dundee. In fact, had it not been deleted from the course for some reason, I would have failed my degree in English by an even greater margin than I eventually did. I did actually get a degree - I sat for an Honours, but was given an Ordinary - because, I was told, I had done rather well in Philosophy and the department insisted I get at least something however angry the English department were with me for wasting their time completely and utterly.)
I took just five, as far as I was concerned the only worthwhile five of the lot: Last Of The Hotel Metal Men (Derek Jameson), Memoirs (Kingsley Amis), Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This (a biography by Marion Meade), At War With Waugh: The Real Story Of Scoop (Bill Deedes), and Gertrude And Alice (a biography of Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas by Diana Souham. I suspect I am something of a closet lesbian).
RIP Marjorie Deschaux (née Hirst).
. . .
Then there was the surprise death of one Paul Rogers who has previously been mentioned in the blog. Paul was one of the guys I got to know over these past few years when I stopped off at The Brewer’s Arms in South Petherton, Somerset, on my way home from London to Cornwall every Wednesday night, for a pint or three of cider, a cigar and to watch the second half of whatever Champion’s League match was showing.
When we first got chatting, it would seem Paul, then a just retired social worker (I suspect he was a little younger than me, but could retire early because he was a civil servant), seemed to be the tub-thumping leftie and I, given my restrained view on most things (except idiots who think Ravel’s Bolero is the pinnacle of musical achievement), the Tory.
Over the following months and in many conversations about this that and t’other it slowly became obvious that I was something of a leftie and Paul rather further to the right than he might have thought he was. Latterly, he admitted voting UKIP in the EU elections. I didn’t.
I stopped off at the pub a few Wednesday’s ago and while we were chatting, Paul said he would be at his caravan in Cornwall where he also keeps a small dinghy the following week and did I want to meet up for a drink? I did, and we settled upon meeting up on the Saturday at The Rashleigh Arms in Charlestown, just outside St Austell.
It was a pleasant drink and we chatted about all the things we usually chatted about, and then when it was time to leave, I said I would like to have a look at the old harbour (the set for many a film about 17th/18th/19th seagoing) and would he like to go along. He said, yes, but to my surprise added ‘but not to the bottom’. I was surprised because it really wasn’t far at all, but put his reluctance down to a rather long coughing fit he had just concluded.
Off we went when, after about three minutes he stopped and said he felt dizzy and not very well at all. We then stood there for about ten minutes - after a few minutes he sat down - before he felt well enough to return to his car.
On the way back, we had to stop again because he still felt awful. Back at his car he took out an angina spray, to my surprise, because I had no idea he suffered from angina. Then he took out another inhaler which he told me was for ‘pulmonary congestion’. That he suffered congestion was also news to me. I offered to drive him back to his caravan and pick up my car later, but he would have none of it, and finally drove off. About an hour later I received a text thanking me for standing him lunch and saying he had returned safely.
He was due to return to Somerset the following Thursday, but on that day, the manageress of the caravan site he was using was surprised to see his car still there by lunchtime as he had told her he would be leaving early in the morning. She got no reply from banging on his caravan door, called the police, they broke in and found him dead.
When I heard the news (the publican in South Petherton who knew we were friends got in touch to tell me), I assumed he had suffered a fatal heart attack, but I have since heard from his daughter that, thankfully, he ‘died in his sleep’ because he couldn’t get enough oxygen. Whether it was the painless death that phrase implies is another matter, of course. I, who dreams a great deal (and loves dreaming) can well imagine that you dream you are choking and unable to breath simply because you are unable to breath. And then you die. But I hope it was painless. Oh, and he also introduced me to the rather good music of Jack Lang which I mentioned here.
RIP Paul Rogers.
. . .
Just for the craic ... I posted this photo on Facebook with absolutely no response whatsover, so I’ll try my luck here. The caption is the same. It relates to the Great Liberation of Hibernia (also known as the Scottish independence referendum) due on September 18 - just 58 days away. Oooooh!
I’m voting Yes! Why don’t you?
Saturday 19 July 2014
RIP John Dawson Winter III. The heroin finally got to you, but then you were 70, so I suppose you win on points
NB These soundfiles won’t play in Opera, but Firefox, Safari and Chrome are fine and maybe other browsers. But not in Opera, I’m afraid.
There was only one item of news which could knock the Ukrainian air crash, the Hamas/Israel squabbling and Kim Kardashian’s latest shopping trip on the head and that is surely the death of John Dawson Winter III. (Incidendtally, someone recently pointed out that most wars can almost always be settled by treaty in which a bit of give and take is involved, but you could never bring harmony to a family feud, and that is more what the trouble in Gaza is – ever heard one sibling rail against another? Bitter doesn’t begin to describe it and rhyme, reason, rational thought don’t ever get a look in and its always the other’s fault. Always.) To be honest there are 101 different guitar players and singers of the ilk of Johnny Winter and many are just as good. But he’s the only good one I know and whose LPs (NB to younger readers: an ancient, much revered form of CD, much missed. Have you ever tried spliffing up and a CD case? Once perhaps, then never again.) I can still remember the first time I heard him. I was in my last year at Dundee University just waking up to the sounds of Radio 1 (it was probably a Saturday) and the DJ played Funky Music (from the LP/CD Johnny Winter And) and I was hooked. Here it is:
(To come, upload server error or some such bollocks i.e. it's Saturday and we really can't be arsed to sort it out. Try on Monday. Better still, don't try again. Unless you would like to subscribe to our Premium service which is just $100 a day and guarantees the NSA will only get to see the more boring bits of your blog. Oh, that's more or less everything, is it? Well, that's your fault.)
That was in 1972 and I began collecting more and more of his records. OK, compared to guitar players I have since come to appreciate such as Joe Pass, Grant Green, Jim Hall, Wes Montgomery, Billy Bauer, John Scofield and the rest, Johnny Winter was a tad limited. But in his own context, raw rock of his kind, he was tops. Then there is his voice and his singing. And I also liked his sense of humour. He battled heroin addiction for most of his life, and after one particular spell in rehab wrote this, Still Alive And Well (from the album of that name). I particularly like the lines ‘Did you ever take a look to see who’s left around / every one I thought was cool is six feet underground’:
Still Alive And Well
Then there’s Too Much Seconal from the same album, about an addict friend with a great flute blues solo:
Too Much Seconal
This one I like a lot, for no other reason than I just like it a lot. It’s All Tore Down:All Tore Down
I don’t really have ‘favourite tracks’ but this one, Ain’t Nothing To Me. He’s giving advice to another guy in the bar not to chat up a particular woman. Her boyfriend is exceedingly jealous and carrying a gun. I like the lines: ‘Ah well, that’s life / or at least it was’:
Ain't Nothing To Me
Johnny Winter also covered songs, especially by the Stones and Dylan, and to my mind his versions of the Stones songs are better than those by the Stones which sound oddly anaemic once you have heard Winter’s. As for his versions of Dylan songs, he almost makes them his own. Here’s Like A Rolling Stone which, in my view, is as good as the original Dylan version:
Like A Rolling Stone
According to the Guardian Rolling Stone magazine named him ‘the 63rd best guitarist ever’. I’m really not too sure how great a compliment that is. He was obviously rated higher than whoever came 64th, but had it been me and I wasn’t in the top five, I would have told them where to stick their list of Best Guitarists Ever, then set light to it. And here’s the Telegraph’s take on his death. Here’s a clip of him playing live:
.
And his version of the Rolling Stones’ Stray Cat Blues (in view of recent stories about child abuse - the girl involved seems to be about 15) now a rather uncomfortable song. Ignore the title shown at the top of the video.
There was only one item of news which could knock the Ukrainian air crash, the Hamas/Israel squabbling and Kim Kardashian’s latest shopping trip on the head and that is surely the death of John Dawson Winter III. (Incidendtally, someone recently pointed out that most wars can almost always be settled by treaty in which a bit of give and take is involved, but you could never bring harmony to a family feud, and that is more what the trouble in Gaza is – ever heard one sibling rail against another? Bitter doesn’t begin to describe it and rhyme, reason, rational thought don’t ever get a look in and its always the other’s fault. Always.) To be honest there are 101 different guitar players and singers of the ilk of Johnny Winter and many are just as good. But he’s the only good one I know and whose LPs (NB to younger readers: an ancient, much revered form of CD, much missed. Have you ever tried spliffing up and a CD case? Once perhaps, then never again.) I can still remember the first time I heard him. I was in my last year at Dundee University just waking up to the sounds of Radio 1 (it was probably a Saturday) and the DJ played Funky Music (from the LP/CD Johnny Winter And) and I was hooked. Here it is:
(To come, upload server error or some such bollocks i.e. it's Saturday and we really can't be arsed to sort it out. Try on Monday. Better still, don't try again. Unless you would like to subscribe to our Premium service which is just $100 a day and guarantees the NSA will only get to see the more boring bits of your blog. Oh, that's more or less everything, is it? Well, that's your fault.)
That was in 1972 and I began collecting more and more of his records. OK, compared to guitar players I have since come to appreciate such as Joe Pass, Grant Green, Jim Hall, Wes Montgomery, Billy Bauer, John Scofield and the rest, Johnny Winter was a tad limited. But in his own context, raw rock of his kind, he was tops. Then there is his voice and his singing. And I also liked his sense of humour. He battled heroin addiction for most of his life, and after one particular spell in rehab wrote this, Still Alive And Well (from the album of that name). I particularly like the lines ‘Did you ever take a look to see who’s left around / every one I thought was cool is six feet underground’:
Still Alive And Well
Then there’s Too Much Seconal from the same album, about an addict friend with a great flute blues solo:
Too Much Seconal
This one I like a lot, for no other reason than I just like it a lot. It’s All Tore Down:All Tore Down
I don’t really have ‘favourite tracks’ but this one, Ain’t Nothing To Me. He’s giving advice to another guy in the bar not to chat up a particular woman. Her boyfriend is exceedingly jealous and carrying a gun. I like the lines: ‘Ah well, that’s life / or at least it was’:
Ain't Nothing To Me
Johnny Winter also covered songs, especially by the Stones and Dylan, and to my mind his versions of the Stones songs are better than those by the Stones which sound oddly anaemic once you have heard Winter’s. As for his versions of Dylan songs, he almost makes them his own. Here’s Like A Rolling Stone which, in my view, is as good as the original Dylan version:
Like A Rolling Stone
According to the Guardian Rolling Stone magazine named him ‘the 63rd best guitarist ever’. I’m really not too sure how great a compliment that is. He was obviously rated higher than whoever came 64th, but had it been me and I wasn’t in the top five, I would have told them where to stick their list of Best Guitarists Ever, then set light to it. And here’s the Telegraph’s take on his death. Here’s a clip of him playing live:
.
And his version of the Rolling Stones’ Stray Cat Blues (in view of recent stories about child abuse - the girl involved seems to be about 15) now a rather uncomfortable song. Ignore the title shown at the top of the video.
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