Romantic music from the late 19th early 20th century. Not the sort of music that Daisy normally goes for, but there were several songs by Alma Mahler in this concert; as Daisy knows Marina Mahler, the granddaughter, Janie was interested enough to give it a try.
Actually, the simplicity of the solo voice and piano pleased Daisy; the whole concert was very relaxing. Even the Alban Berg, which I thought might be a bit impenetrable, wasn’t.
I really liked the Sibelius song they performed on encore – Var det en dröm? – which I don’t think I had ever heard before.
On Janie’s suggestion, we had taken a sneak peak at Massimo Dutti before we got to The Wig. I had some colourful shirts put aside for me to try on after the concert.
But once the performance had ended, we both had a bit of a hunger on, so went to the Wigmore Hall restaurant, just for some soup, to tide us over until evening. Butternut squash soup it was, very tasty.
If you look at the table behind us, I inadvertently caught the performers at lunch – Julius Drake glancing in our direction while talking to the woman to his left; Katarina Karnéus sitting to Julius Drake’s right
After soup, we legged it to Massimo Dutti where the young lady who had been serving us earlier was just about to give up on us and put the shirts away again. I bought four, which I shall always associate with this very enjoyable afternoon and concert.
Not like me to be a fashionista, but Janie loves the V&A and had worked out that, on the back of her membership, we could take in the new Mary Quant and Christian Dior exhibitions in preview without breaking a sweat on this late opening Friday.
I preceded the impending double dose of fashion with a double dose of tennis. The first hour was a singles bout against a gentleman who was a fairly regular opponent of mine in the early days but who I hadn’t played for some while. The handicap system had us level for this game, but I think he was having a bit of an off day and in any case all the luck seemed to go my way and not his, resulting in me registering a good win.
The second hour was the senior doubles, which I have mentioned several times before, e.g. click here. Robin Simpson, who is one of the handful of nonagenarians who still plays, was on the other side and on top form today. He seemed able to get back everything my partner and I could throw at him. In truth it was a delight to witness his performance, except that, at 5-all, 30-all, you don’t want your supposed winning shots sent back to you with interest, on two consecutive points, by a 92-year-old, to seal the set for your opponents.
Photo from a previous doubles of a somewhat less senior variety
Then a quick snack before Janie joined me and we headed off to the V&A. We figured that the late afternoon slot might be best for minimising the queuing, as we had been warned that we might need to queue for quite a long time for both the Quant and the Dior.
The members desk recommended that we start with Quant, where we only had to queue for about 10 minutes. Dig this groovy trailer for the show:
This exhibition will be running until February 2020, so if you read this Ogblog piece in time, clicking here or on the image below will tell you how to see the show – in any case the V&A resources about this show should still be there.
Click this image to see the V&A website resources on this Mary Quant exhibition, including the credit for this image.
Janie especially loves these 60’s fashions. I found the story of Mary Quant’s early life interesting…
…indeed, in truth, I was more interested in the whole iconography and 60’s culture generally than in the fashion. But this show has plenty of fun imagery and artefacts as well as fashion garments.
More coat couture than haute couture. Photos (apart from the link ones, which are credited on the V&A site) by Daisy (Janie) – this one shows Mary Quant’s Daisy doll – after our time apparently.
Then Janie and I went to the Members Lounge for some refreshments before braving the Dior queue, which we had been warned was a formidable 30 minutes or more job.
The Christian Dior exhibition has been running since February and has proved so incredibly popular that the run has been extended to September 2019, but even that has now sold out so it is available to members only in the absence of pre-booked tickets.
Click here or the image below for on-line information about the Dior exhibition. There are several vids and lots of amazing photos and panoramas of the show, which might satisfy many a curious reader who cannot get to see the show itself.
Click this image for the V&A resources on the Christian Dior exhibition, including the credit for this image.
In the event, our choice of that late afternoon/early evening slot proved wise, as we only needed to queue for about 5 minutes to get in to the Dior. We chatted with an unusual lady dressed in a bizarre assortment of home-made turquoise-dyed garments.
The haute couture in truth means even less to me than the Mary Quant type fashion, but the context of Dior’s life, untimely death and then how the House of Dior progressed over the decades was interesting.
Further, the Dior exhibition in particular is beautifully laid out – stunning in places, so Janie, who took loads of photos in the Quant one, took loads more in the Dior one.
Spot GedSpot DaisyDreamy final room……so dreamy I almost nodded off in there.
Janie’s stack of pictures from this afternoon and early evening at the V&A can all be seen on Flickr by clicking here or below.
I found the contrast between the two exhibitions fascinating, making it a well worthwhile visit, for me, to see the two shows. In truth, it was a very enjoyable and interesting outing from both of our points of view. The benefits of Janie being a member of the V&A really came into play for this visit. We’re planning another next month, so watch this space!
From Tate Britain Exhibition Area – click image for all that relevant Tate Britain information
We wanted to see both the Don McCullin and the Van Gogh exhibitions, so we booked out an afternoon soon after the latter opened. It timed well also with the Middlesex County Cricket Club AGM that evening.
As Janie commented afterwards, being a member of the Tate is no longer a great advantage viz-a-viz getting to see major exhibitions at a quiet time…unless you take advantage of the “early Sunday morning” option.
Still, I think mid afternoon on a Monday was about as good as it is going to get with the Van Gogh, certainly for the early weeks of its run, as he is such a popular artist and this is such a major retrospective on him.
Last featured at the Tate in 1947 (I’ll guess that my dad will have gone to that one as he was studying art at that time), Van Gogh returns to Tate Britain after all these years in a show designed to illustrate how much Van Gogh was influenced by British artists of the late 19th century and how much he in turn influenced British artists of the 20th century.
Janie and I found some of the connections a little tenuous and felt that there were rather too many second rate British works on show. I guess the curators want the exhibition to look big and perhaps they want to show the Van Gogh works for what they are – truly exceptional examples.
Janie and I are also blessed with having had the opportunity to see a great many Van Gogh works around the place; not only those that reside in London but also in New York, Paris and Amsterdam. I shall be writing up my 1989 culture-vulturedom in Amsterdam quite soon, as we approach the 30th anniversary of that visit; the Van Gogh Museum was for sure on of the highlights then. Many works from that venue are on show in London at the moment.
The Battle for the City of Hue, South Vietnam, US Marine Inside Civilian House 1968, printed 2013 Don McCullin born 1935 ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Purchased with the assistance of the ARTIST ROOMS Endowment, supported by the Henry Moore Foundation and Tate Members 2014 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/AR01196. Click the above picture to see the Tate Britain on-line resources for the Don McCullin exhibition.
I had been especially excited about seeing the Don McCullin since I first read about it; I have long admired his photography but never seen a whole load of it assembled in one place.
This exhibition, a major retrospective on his life’s work, is quite exceptional. McCullin’s early work documents the grimier side of North and east London in the 1950s. Even from those early photographs McCullin’s extraordinary talent for framing and use of light in black and white photography shines through.
He is best known for his international photography, documenting wars and natural disasters, mostly in the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the works are harrowing but they are always respectful of their subjects and informative rather than judgemental.
Some of his later work is quite brilliant too. Janie and I especially enjoyed seeing his photos from the South Omo valley in Ethiopia, which McCullin visited only a year or so before we did. I’m sure I recognised one of the Karo tribesman McCullin had photographed as one of the young men who welcomed us at a Karo village.
After the Tate, Janie and I went on to Lord’s for the Middlesex AGM and a very pleasant drinks part afterwards, rounding off a thoroughly enjoyable day.
Message to art lovers though – both of these exhibitions, Van Gogh and Don McCullin, are top notch. Well worth a visit to Tate Britain for either or especially both.
On pondering the topic, lost and found, I soon realised that the thing I tend to lose most frequently at this stage of my life is time. And that the thing I am seeking to find with the most gusto is memories.
Those thoughts reminded me of two anecdotes.
The first one came at the end of the cricket season a few years ago.
Late season, I always try to take in a day of county cricket with my old friend, Charley “The Gent” Malloy. It helps us both to prepare for the inevitable winter withdrawal symptoms. The cricket season starts earlier and ends later each year, yet it seems to fly by faster than ever. Where do those months go?
In order to investigate this temporal phenomenon, which I shall paraphrase as ‘in search of lost time,’ I decided to add a large packet of madeleines to the picnic. I had bought that large pack earlier in the season but had not got around to using them. Those madeleines would expire before the next season. Besides, as any fool knows…
…or at least anyone with a vague knowledge of the writings of Marcel Proust…
…when in search of lost time, what you need more than anything else, is madeleines.
No sooner had the umpires called “tea”, than out came the madeleines.
And no sooner had the crumbs touched my palate, than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses. Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it?
And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings nanny would hand me, after dressing me in my little sailor suit, when I went to say good morning to mama in her boudoir.
“Are you getting involuntary memory from these?” I asked.
“Yup,” said Charley. “I can recall the rare occasions in that grim North-Eastern mining town, when mum would put a tiny pile of cakes on the table and the whole family would fight like wildcats in the hope that a few crumbs might touch yer palate.”
Now Charley is Essex born and bred. He does have some County Durham ancestry way back, but I’m not sure he’d ever even been to County Durham until we went together to the Durham test match in 2013.
“Hmm”, I said. “I think we might both be getting false memory rather than involuntary recovered memory from this packet of madeleines. Must be the lack of lemon zest. Still, they’re surprisingly good for packaged cakes. I’ll have another.”
“Me too”, said Charley.
So we ate three or four each and Charley took the remainder home to share with his starving wife and bairns.
…
Now, not all that long afterwards, I experienced a real example of finding a lost memory as a result of eating food. The foodstuff wasn’t madeleines this second time; it was caviar. Janie decided to treat us to a small pot of Ossetra caviar to help celebrate New Year’s Eve.
And this time, the recovered memory was an extremely peculiar but absolutely genuine memory…
…about Hitler.
Now there is an internet adage known as Godwin’s Law, which states (I paraphrase) that any internet discussion will eventually descend into a Hitler comparison.
Surely Threadmash should be a Hitler-free, safe space; not subject to an immersive equivalent of Godwin’s Law? Normally, yes, but not today.
From my infancy all the way through my childhood in Streatham, we had a wonderful lady doctor, Dr Edwina Green. Edwina was a GP who went way beyond the call of duty.
For example, because I was…how should I put this?…more than a little fearful of my jabs as an infant, she came round to our house to dispense the vaccinations. On one famous occasion, when I was feeling particularly averse to being stabbed, Edwina indicated to mum that my rump might make a better target in the circumstances. I worked out the coded message and tried to bolt. The end result was a chase around the room and eventually a rather undignified bot shot delivered by Edwina under the dining room table. My mum oft-reminded me of this later in my life.
Not even the trike was fast enough for me to escape Edwina’s needle
This extraordinary level of pastoral care and attentiveness went beyond zealously inoculating reluctant Harris miniatures – Edwina and her family were close friends with my immediate family, not least the ones who came “from the old country”. Uncle Manny, whose opinions were so robust and plentiful, that everyone in the family called him Pundit…and Grandma Anne – a traditional Jewish grandmother, who peppered her heavily-accented English with “bissel Yiddish”.
Grandma Anne With Dad (left) & Uncle Michael (right), c1930 Uncle Pundit (centre) with Dad (left) and Uncle Michael (right), c1950
In the early 1970s, at Christmas-time, my parents would go to Edwina’s house for a seasonal party, along with many other local folk. Naturally, my parents plied Edwina and her family with gifts…many of Edwina’s other patients and guests most certainly did the same.
A strange tradition arose, in which Edwina reciprocated our present giving by handing down a generous gift she would always receive from a wealthy Iranian patient; an enormous pot, I think a pound, of Iranian Beluga caviar.
By Mai Le [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Edwina and family didn’t like the taste of caviar. Nor did my dad, as it happens. But mum loved it and I acquired a seasonal taste for it too.
Each year, mum and I would eat Beluga caviar on toast for breakfast for the first couple of weeks of the year.
Even back then caviar, especially Beluga caviar, was very expensive. Not equivalent to the “critically endangered, barely legal, hard to get hold of” price levels of today, but still very much a pricey, luxury item.
I remember mum warning me not to tell my friends at school that I was eating caviar on toast for breakfast, because they would surmise that I was a liar or that we were a rich family or (worst of all) both.
There was only one problem with this suburban community idyll; Don Knipe. Edwina’s husband.
Don liked his drink. Specifically Scotch whisky. More specifically, Teacher’s whisky. A bottle of Teacher’s always formed part of our family Christmas gift offering, that bottle forming but a tiny proportion of Don’s annual intake.
By ramkrsna (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramkrsna/384365364/) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Don I recall always being described as “eccentric”, but, as the years went on, Don’s eccentricities gained focus with increasing unpleasantness. Don joined the National Front, at that time the most prominent far-right, overtly fascist party in the UK.
One year, when I was already in my teens, my parents returned early from Edwina and Don’s party. I learned that Don had acquired a large bust of Hitler, which was being proudly displayed as a centrepiece in the living room. My mother had protested to Don about the bust, asking him to remove it, but to no avail. Mum had taken matters into her own hands by rotating the bust by 180 degrees. When Don insisted on rotating Hitler’s bust back to its forward-facing position, mum and dad left the party in protest.
Mum told Don and Edwina that they remained welcome at our house but that she would not be visiting their house while Hitler remained on show.
One evening, a few weeks or months later, my parents had Edwina, Don and some other people around our house. The topic of Hitler and Nazi atrocities came up. Don started sounding off about the Holocaust not really having been as bad as people made out.
Edwina And Don At My Bar Mitzvah, Natch.
My father stood up and quietly told me to go upstairs to my bedroom. I scampered up the stairs but hovered on the landing out of view to get a sense of what was happening.
My father was a very gentle man. I only remember him being angry twice in my whole life; this was one of those occasions.
“You f***ing c***!”, I heard my dad exclaim.
I learned afterwards that my father, not a big man but a colossus beside the scrawny form of Don Knipe, had pinned Don to the wall and gone very red in the face while delivering his brace of expletives.
I heard the sound of a kerfuffle, a few more angry exchanges, ending with “get out of my house”. Then I heard Don and Edwina leave the house. Edwina was weeping, apologising and trying to explain that Don doesn’t know or mean what he says.
Dad – a supremely gentle fellow…usually
The story gets weirder. Edwina remained our family doctor, although social visits were now at an end. Don and Edwina remained extremely attentive to Uncle Manny’s branch of the family and Grandma Anne.
And the seasonal exchange of gifts remained sacrosanct.
For reasons I now find hard to fathom, I became the conduit for the seasonal gift exchange. Why my mother, who organised the errand, felt that I would be less defiled than my parents by visiting a household that displays a bust of Hitler, I have no idea.
Anyway, for several years I would go to Edwina and Don’s house to deliver our presents and collect the fishy swag. I didn’t go into the large living room which contained Hitler’s bust; I would usually be received in a smaller front drawing room.
As I got a bit older, Don would ask me to join him for a whisky and a cigarette; offers which I accepted.
I can’t recall what Don and I normally talked about; not politics. We probably just chatted vaguely about my family and the weather.
But I do recall what we talked about in 1981, my last visit in this ritual.
By late December 1981 I had completed four terms at Keele; I was far more politically aware than I had been in earlier years.
Don greeted me at the front door, as usual, but this time said, “come through to the living room and have a whisky with me.”
“Not if Hitler is still in there,” I said.
“Oh don’t start all that”, blustered Don, who I think must have made a start on the whisky before I got to the house that morning. “I really want to chat to you about your late uncle and your grandma.” Don started to cry.
I relented and entered the forbidden chamber.
And there he was, in the sitting room, glaring in my direction.
Hitler.
The bust of Hitler, I mean. I said the story was genuine and strange, not deranged.
Hitler’s bust, resplendently positioned with Nazi flags and books about the Third Reich on display around it.
I accepted a generous slug of Teacher’s and a Rothmans; then I reluctantly sat down.
Don was crying. “I miss your Uncle Manny and your Grandma Anne so much”, he said, “you have no idea how fond of them I was. I love your family.”
I remember saying words to this effect, “Don, I understand that you sincerely love my family, but I cannot reconcile that love with Hitler, Nazi memorabilia, your membership of the National Front and you keeping company with those who hold such views. Those are antisemitic, out-and-out racist organisations and people. It makes no sense to me.”
“It’s not about Jewish people like your family. I love your family.”
“So what sort of people is it about?” I asked.
“Other people. You don’t understand”, said Don.
Don was right. I didn’t understand. I still don’t understand. It isn’t as if our family was so secular and Westernised. Uncle Manny and Grandma Anne were like Jewish stereotype characters from central casting.
“Godwin’s Law, Godwin’s Schmo, Don Was Always A Mensch Towards Me”
I think I was polite in making my excuses and leaving fairly quickly. The visit certainly didn’t end in any acrimony or hostility. For sure I got the caviar. But I resolved not to run that errand again and (as far as I recall) didn’t ever visit that house again.
Strange. And I found that memory simply as a result of sampling a small pot of caviar with Janie.
Now, as an experiment this evening, I thought it would be fascinating for all of us here at Threadmash to see if we can find lost memories in this way.
So, at my own cost…
…with absolutely no expense spared…
…I have bought each of you a small pot…
[TURN PAGE IN SEARCH OF THE PUNCHLINE]
…I have bought each of you a small, pot-entially Proustian…
…madeleine.
[HAND OUT WRAPPED MADELEINES FROM BAG]
Postscript – Brief Review Of the Evening, Written The Morning After
We gathered excitedly at the Gladstone Arms for this second Threadmash. Ten of us with stories to tell and just a couple of people this time observing only.
People listening intently to Rohan’s intro
As last time, Rohan was the arranger and compere for the evening. He stitched me up to go first – which explains why I was in a good position to photograph some of the group from the side during Rohan’s intro.
Eight of us were having a second go; two new people joined us in telling a story.
The stories tended to be darker and more visceral this time. Perhaps the topic, “Lost and Found” was asking for that. Two of the stories were about experiences with drugs and/or addiction. Two were about nearly losing a loved one, together with the intense emotions that arise from such events. One was about nearly losing a cherished artefact – in this case a violin; a personal story, interestingly, nevertheless, told in the third person.
Several of the pieces this time were experimental in their written style. One was in blank verse. Two were fabulist, in one case making it intriguingly hard to tell the extent to which it was based on personal experience. One story spanned over fifty years and ended with a fascinating revelation.
All of the stories and performances were very good indeed; delivered and received with great warmth.
To continue the thread for next time, Rohan brought a pile of single records, from which we each picked two at random, so we shall each have a different title next time and some element of choice from the records we picked.
Not a bad random choice to trigger story-telling
One story teller, earlier in the evening, had said that we don’t always find stories to tell; sometimes a story finds us. I was pondering this fascinating idea, after parting company with the last of my companions, as I switched to the Central Line at Bank. There, on the train, as I sat down in the almost empty carriage, on the seat opposite me, a story found me:
There simply has to be a story behind that crumpled Ann Summers bag. It won’t be my next Threadmash story, but it is a story that should be told. If you want to tell it; please do so – it might not be for me to tell that story.
It had been a wonderful evening.
As I write, the next morning, my head is full of all of those stories and the warm, friendly feeling that pervaded the evening. Strangely, I cannot find a single word to describe that feeling in English, whereas there is a suitably descriptive word for it in German: Gemütlichkeit.
Once again Rohan, many thanks for making Threadmash happen. Here’s to the next one.
Wilderness is about a couple who split up, determined to make it amicable for the sake of their eight-year-old son. But of course it doesn’t work out like that.
Janie and I found this play a painfully visceral piece. Neither Janie nor I have direct experience of this scenario, but that didn’t lessen the power of the drama for us.
Anna Ledwich, who has directed so many of the excellent things we’ve seen at the Hampstead, has again done brilliant work with a new writer, Kellie Smith and a superb cast: Richard Frame, Natalie Klamar, Allison Mckenzie, Finlay Robertson.
An excellent, sparse set by Lucy Sierra added to the sense of cold and decay that pervaded the piece.
One element of the writing that I think deserves praise was how very irritating the main characters were, yet Kellie Smith managed to maintain a sense of goodness and vulnerability, such that we as audience members cared about them and cared what happened to them. One of the ways she did that was to prevent us from ever seeing the child at the centre of the tussle; of course we couldn’t but care deeply for the ever-absent child and the impact the play’s events must have been having on him.
One other event will stick long in our memories. Next to us sat two slightly unusual women; one young, one quite a bit older. They clearly weren’t together but struck up a chatting friendship. At the end of the interval, the younger woman came back with some wine and cake. She plonked the wine down in front of her (we were in the front row) and commenced with munching the cake, taking and expressing great joy in her victuals.
Janie and I both, silently, thought that wine cup was an accident waiting to happen, positioned, as it was, in the path of any late-comer who might be moving swiftly to their seat at the end of the interval. Within a minute, indeed such a latecomer arrived and indeed the cup and the wine were put asunder. To make matters worse, in her dismay and forward lunge in a vain attempt to rescue her wine, the young woman also dropped the remains of her cake.
“Oh no”, said the young woman, “that was entirely my own fault”.
In some ways, that silly incident felt like a comedic metaphor for the serious subject matter of the play. Meanwhile, I have been trying to work out if I can find yet sillier places to leave victuals and crockery lying around the house in order to maximise the chance that they get spilt and/or broken. Thought experiment only, you understand.
But back to this truly excellent play/production, Wilderness. It really is well worth seeing if you like your drama intense, up close and personal.
Plenty of seats still available at the time of writing; Janie and I would suggest that you book early to avoid disappointment. The production runs to 27 April 2019 and I hope it gets a deserved transfer after that.
Did I mention that I had a recording deal lined up? Yeh, Simon Jacobs, who does producing as well as recording and all that – he signed me up to do a demo in his high tech studio. This could be the start of my stratospheric popular music career and not before time, frankly.
Now Simon is a very musical chap and has been so for longer than I have known him, which is well north of 40 years. Here, for example, is his latest hit, Ghosts, which he released many weeks ago, but it refuses to fade in the Spotify rankings, still getting infeasible thousands of streams a week on that platform – the YouTube is below so you can also see the vid:
So what, in the name of all that is good and pure, was Simon thinking when he suggested that I record the Warren & Durbin classic, I Only Have Eyes For You. Not in the original Dick Powell pitch/key of C (heck knows that is hard enough for me, even with the sheet music to look at), but nine whole stops up the register in the Art Garfunkel range.
Nine whole stops. That’s like, Notting Hill Gate to South Ruislip, if you are daft enough to go west from Notting Hll. Even Ian Pittaway, my music teacher, who has crazy ideas about my ability to reach high notes, only nudges me three or very occasionally five stops up.
Here’s the result of Simon’s wild musical concept:
Anyway, Simon said that he much preferred the Art Garfunkel version of the song:
While I complained that even the original Dick Powell was wicked hard for me to play and/or sing.
But Simon insisted that his recording gadgetry could rectify any minor failings in my singing and that he thought he could, with a little effort, turn me into a latter-day Art.
It seemed like a jolly good excuse for a get together and/but life seemed to intervene for a while, so a ridiculous number of months passed before we actually got round to implementing the plan.
On the day, I arrived at Simon’s West London studio, which also doubles as his house, late afternoon/early evening, ready for a rollicking rock’n’roll evening of music.
First up, obviously, we indulged in some appropriate herbal substances; a big mug of tea each, together with some chat about really trendy topics, such a Brexit.
Then down to business with the recording.
I felt a little strange working on that particular song, that particular week. A couple of days earlier I’d been to the funeral of our neighbour, Barry Edson, who was an aficionado of film musicals. I’d had several interesting conversations with Barry about Warren and Durbin songs and Barry had shown me interesting stuff about those song writers from his library-sized collection of books on the topic.
But back to me recording I Only Have Eyes For You in an Art-like style with the help of computerised sound engineering.
Actually it was a very interesting process for me. Simon clearly does this sort of thing a lot, but mostly with his own, not with anyone else’s, voice.
We had a rehearsal run through. Then we took a recording take which sounded crackly. That led to some rearrangement of the microphone, the music and me. I even offered to remove my socks but those lengths were deemed unnecessary.
Then a couple more takes, at which point Simon thought we might try to repair take four with some fragments, but after we’d done that, I suggested one more try at a better straight-through take.
I’m glad I did that, because the final take was, in my opinion, quite a lot better than the previous ones (I realise that notion might be hard for the listener to believe).
Then Simon really got down to doing the sound engineering thing.
Simon is geeking my song
It was a bit like having your homework marked in front of the school teacher. On many of my notes, there was a huge amount of vibrato which Simon was able to smooth a bit.
Imagine, as an analogy, someone using fancy software to turn my legendary illegible handwriting into something that looks more like a legible script.
Is there any handwriting-smoothing software that might help? – September 1989 sample
The music software would help each note find its probable home on the scale. But sometimes the thing I had sung was closer to some other note than the note that the purist might fussily describe as the “right” note.
Actually I believe I did sing all the right notes…just not necessarily in the right order.
But it didn’t matter because Simon’s fancy software could shift pretty much whatever I sang to the exact place it belonged on the scale.
On just one occasion did Simon have to say, “I’m not even sure what you’re supposed to be singing there – may I please see the music?” – that was on the second intro couplet, which Art Garfunkle doesn’t sing.
And there is the one note that I strangled so very comprehensively that no amount of tinkering seemed able to repair it. Let’s imagine that I was gulping with emotion on that note.
Then some more listenings and some more tinkerings…
…by which time I was getting quite excited and wondered whether we should try more and more takes, on the basis that my voice seemed to be getting better and better each time.
The conversation then drifted towards artistes who had spent months or even years trying to perfect individual tracks for release.
I wondered whether we might lock ourselves away, perfecting this track, for, say, five years, in order to emerge, not only with a sure-fire hit on our hands, but with Brexit over. Simon thought that five years is probably not long enough…to ensure that Brexit is over with.
Anyway, in case you missed it above, or want to hear it again, here’s the end result:
Timothy then joined me and Simon for dinner at The Brackenbury Wine Rooms, which was a suitably convenient and high quality location for some good food & wine plus some top notch natter. It was a good opportunity to get to know Timothy a little better – the only time I’d met him before was at Simon’s Circle Line album launch, about 18 months ago, which was not an occasion for getting to know people well.
On parting, I suggested dates for me to return to record the rest of the album. But Simon just shook his head politely and solemnly. “A one-off recording deal, that was”, he said.
“Not even a B-side for the single?” I asked.
Simon shook his head politely and solemnly again, as both Simon and Timothy said, “goodbye,” not, “au revoir.”
But…
…and here’s a thing…
…when I listened to the track again the next morning, it sounded far better to me than it had the evening before. I said so to Simon, in a thank you message. Simon’s reply, perhaps similarly inspired by a re-listening:
Glad you like your recorded performance! Do let me know when you’re ready to record your whole album!!
So now I have an album deal lined up? Yeh, that well-known music producer Simon Jacobs…this must be the next stage of my stratospheric popular music career and not before time, frankly.
In many ways this evening had been long in the planning. Janie and I spotted Mere as a suitable place to dine with John & Mandy last summer, but in the end we opted for Dinner In Noddyland:
So good was it, that John and I decided that we “owed it to the girls” to all four have a meal there once the opportunity arose. Now was that opportunity.
We met ahead of our booking time to have a drink in the lovely bar. Janie and I got there first and I ordered a bottle of the excellent Sancerre that John and I had tried at Mere the first time around.
We also discussed many other things, not least John and Mandy’s other daughter, Bella, who looks set to go to Manchester to study – does Bella not know about the inclement weather in Manchester?
We all decided we wanted to try the tasting menu; so we did. Three of us (all bar Mandy) also went for the wine pairings.
John And Mandy taking it all in, as the sommelier explains the first of the wine pairingsHere’s all the stuff we tasted, in words.
Janie took the pictures, which explains why she appears in none of them. Take my word for it, Janie was also listening attentively, smiling a lot and enjoying the tastes, smells and the chat.
Leeks & TruffleAttentive listeningCornish CodWas I describing Hitler’s cohones at this juncture? Something like that.ScallopMandy sniffs the interesting Youngblood Grenache served with the scallopRose VealWe really do look like a couple of pseudo-connoisseurs in this pictureWhite Port to go with the cheeseCheese (mine mercifully without the candied walnut)Am I unconvinced by the final wine or just running out of steam?Apple Chocoholics delight
This Ogblog piece makes it look as though we did an awful lot of eating and drinking, which we did. But the portion sizes were such that we did not feel stuffed or sloshed at the end of the meal, just very happy.
We all four know how lucky we are to be able to eat in a place as good as Mere and to be able to enjoy the company of such good friends. It was a truly memorable and wonderful evening.
Or, to summarise in one word using John’s favourite adjective back in the mid 1980s:
Anyway, life hasn’t been taking me to Manchester much lately, so when John White told me that his daughter, Lydia, was to have her first professional stage role in Rags The Musical at the Hope Mill Theatre…
…I decided to construct a short trip to that fair, clement City.
I contacted Ashley Fletcher, who had been unavailable on my previous visit or two; we arranged to meet for dinner on the evening of 12 March. So I booked three goes at the Manchester Tennis and Racquets Club, a ticket for Rags for 13 March and an Airbnb apartment near to the Hope Mill Theatre for two nights.
Unfortunately, Ashley got called away at the last minute on family matters, leaving the first night free. This possibly afforded me an opportunity to meet up with Alex “King Cricket” Bowden instead…
…but Alex spotted that Manchester City were to play Schalke 04 at the City Of Manchester Stadium that night, which is within chaos distance of my chosen location for diggings and musical theatre. What do I know of football? For a start, why are Schalke given 04 just for turning up – are they using a handicapping system in football now, much as we do in real tennis?
Strangely there had been a big European match at that same stadium when I was last in Manchester in 2016 against a shibbolethic team named…
…Borussia Mönchengladbach….
…But as I was staying in Salford Quays that time, the resulting disruption was merely hearsay to me, whereas this time I had inadvertently arranged to stay right in the thick of it.
I sought some spiritual advice on the matter.
I had arranged to meet Andy Salmon at Sacred Trinity Church briefly before playing tennis that Tuesday afternoon. We are both involved with the Church’s on-line service register initiative, which Andy is piloting.
Sacred Trinity: a beautiful church in Salford which happens to be just around the corner from the Manchester Tennis And Racquets Club
It was actually very interesting for me to see one of the Churches involved in our project, not least to see what such places are like on a regular, non-service day. Andy of course made me very welcome and also gave me some helpful local North-East Manchester advice regarding what to do when a big match is on. Basically, get to your digs early enough to avoid the chaotic roads/transport and then only go out again during the hours of play.
Manchester Tennis And Racquets Club – not so special looking from the outside – you can see why I drove around the block a couple of times on my first visit there.
After tennis (a close match in which I came second, despite having received handicap points) I dashed off sharpish to get to New Islington early and settle in to my apartment. Probably just as well, not least because I could see the police getting ready to herd fans round the ring road and along Pollard Street. Also, it took me a while once I got to the apartment to sort out parking and entry – some goon had parked in the designated parking space for my car. The errant parking goon had been given a parking ticket, but I had no idea what I was supposed to do in the circumstances, so I waited for my host to sort out an alternative space for me to use, which he did reasonably quickly.
Getting in and out of these fancy apartments in converted industrial buildings is often quite a palaver (this is not my first time in such a place), but this one was quite exceptional, with codes for the car park, building entrance, stairs (if needed – wasn’t), corridors and then finally the front door. Once you know all of these things its OK, but the first time, laden with baggage…
…anyway, I was there in decent time and liaised with Alex. We concluded that getting either of us to and from each other within the hours of play would leave precious little time to actually do anything of merit, so abandoned the idea of meeting.
Plenty of time to eat there between the start and end of a football match.
Indeed I was home well before the end of the match and was very tired. I had driven almost all the way to Manchester through torrential rain; my least favourite driving conditions. I went to bed early and thought I heard the roar of the crowd from the stadium. Probably a goal I thought, dozily.
I also discovered that Manchester City had done similarly well on my previous 2016 visit, scoring four against a team requiring no handicap – I’m starting to get the hang of this new soccer scoring system now. I’m sure the soccer crowds just love the additional nuance that handicap scoring can bring.
Anyway, after that enjoyably early night, I rose early and had plenty of time for reading and practising my Renaissance guitar technique before going off again to Salford for a lunchtime tennis match up. This time no handicap at all and this time I prevailed over my opponent. Both of the matches had been very good ones; really nice people and good challenging tennis. Tomorrow I’ll return for a lesson.
Back to the apartment for some more music and reading. Then back to the Thai place to try a rice dish – a beef massaman.
The next morning I vacated my apartment and drove round the ring road for my tennis lesson. I decided to take a picture of the main lobby of the club, which, in contrast to the exterior, looks like a grand club from a bygone era. Trigger warning: the heads of deceased beasts line the walls:
Through the arched window (as they would say in Play School) is the real tennis court.
Darren Long gave me my lesson – as indeed he did on my last visit. He does some different drills from the guys at Lord’s and has some interesting thoughts on the one or two things I might do to transform my game from the ordinary to the utterly exceptional. It might be as easy as that…although it might not.
Seriously, Darren is a very good coach and it was a very enjoyable hour. Once again, the team at the Manchester Tennis and Racquets Club had made me feel extremely welcome and looked after me as well as I could possibly have hoped for.
I made two stops on the journey home to ensure an adequate state of alertness and to stretch a bit – driving from Manchester to London straight after a rigorous hour of drills on the tennis court is probably not ideal on the old body, but still.
It had been an enjoyable trip; apart from the cold, the wind and the rain. Manchester really should try and do something about that – otherwise it could end up with somewhat of a reputation for its inclement weather.
Declaration of interest: I have known Lydia White, who plays the role of Bella in this production, since before she was born; she is my best mate John’s daughter. This production is Lydia’s professional debut.
Picture borrowed from Lydia’s Twitter account – I’m guessing she wont mind.
Declaration of uninterest: this type of musical theatre is simply not the sort of stuff I would normally see. Yes, I wrote lyrics for Newsrevue in the 1990s, which is sort-of musical theatre and yes I wrote the lyrics for Casablanca the Musical at the turn of the century.
Yes, I am familiar with recordings of many of the great musicals of the 1930s through to the 1970s. But you can search Ogblog high and low for signs of straight musical theatre going in vain.
So, there I was; a chap normally predisposed to parodying musical theatre rather than appreciating it, trying to lap up Rags the Musical, a troubled piece from 1986 which closed on Broadway after just four nights, much revamped for this 2019 revival.
Rags is about a group of Jewish immigrants arriving in America early in the 20th Century. It has often been described as a sort-of sequel to Fiddler On the Roof, with several of those involved in writing the latter also involved in writing Rags. Here is a link to Hope Mill Theatre’s resource on this musical/production.
I thought the quality of this production was quite exceptional. I didn’t really know what to expect in a disused mill, relatively recently re-purposed as a small theatre with grand ideas to put on big shows like this.
Can they do it? Yes they can.
Coincidentally, I ended up sitting next to a pair of gentlemen who I had noticed sitting next to me in the Jūb Thai before the show. The chap immediately next to me turned out to be a local who has become very impressed by this new theatre on his manor. He told me that their home grown productions, of which Rags is one – have been consistently excellent.
The thing that impressed me the most was the universal quality of the performances. Not to detract at all from Lydia White’s superb performance, the praises of which clearly I am here to hail, in seriousness I thought the whole cast, every one of them, was truly excellent.
The quality of the musicianship was very high too. The music is a mish-mosh (if I might throw in bissel Yiddish) of ragtime, klezmer, jazz and show; that cannot be easy to contain and deliver to consistent quality, but the musicians and singers keep going to a very high quality level throughout.
The book was clearly problematic from the 1986 outset with this musical – I think the radical rewrite has partially but not totally solved the problem. I have some sympathy with the original author Joseph Stein. He originally set out to write a screenplay, settled on the libretto of a musical but kept the big picture story about the immigrant experience at the turn of the 20th Century. I have read a synopsis of the original version and it really does try to cover an enormous scope of subject matter for a musical.
And much like a troyer-shpil in the Yiddish Theatre tradition, which Rags The Musical parodies in many ways, it tries to throw in everything but the kitchen sink. So this is not one for the Royal Court.
The rewrite for this production is a smaller canvas but as a result some of the nuance is, I think, lost. So, for example…
…*spoiler alert*…
…Bella’s demise towards the end of the piece seems like happenstance rather than part of almost inevitable conflicts between ambition, desperation, industrial action and greed.
The writers have made some interesting choices, some of which work better than others. I loved the theatre trip towards the end of the first act where the protagonists see a Yiddish version of Hamlet which ends up with Klezmer music and Horah dancing despite Hamlet and Ophelia’s despair.
I was surprised by The Kaddish (mourner’s prayer) song, though, for which the writers chose simply to set the original mourner’s prayer to music. I imagined it would be something akin to the Fiddler On The Roof Sabbath Prayer song, which picks and chooses passages from the Hebrew prayer to make a very charming musical song in English.
The Mourner’s Kaddish is actually a tongue-twister of a prayer – part in Hebrew part in Aramaic – it must be really hard for people to learn it if they haven’t grown up with it and it must sound very strange to the uninitiated ear. Unfortunately I had reason to see and hear a mourner’s kaddish again, two days after seeing the show. I thought about it and really struggled to understand why the Rags lyricist hadn’t selected choice phrases in English to depict the meaning of that prayer with dignity and beauty. Perhaps superstition played its part – you just don’t mess with the prayer for the dead.
I was also surprised that the Children Of The Wind song doesn’t appear until right at the end of the show – reprised almost immediately in the finale. The musical would, to me, have seemed more holistic if that song had appeared early, e.g. when the immigrants arrive, as well as at the end of the show when their tale has been told.
But then what do I know to critique a musical? I don’t really do musicals.
At the small canvas level, the story very much resonated with me. I am, after all, a mostly third generation Jew, three of my four grandparents came to London from the Pale Of Settlement around the time this musical is set – plus or minus 20 years. My father’s family were indeed in the shmutter (rag) trade…they even changed their name to Harris; an idea which the Rebecca character considers but chooses to reject.
Grandma Anne With Dad (left) & Uncle Michael (right), both born in the UK. Two older brothers, Alec and Manny, came as infants with Grandma Anne from the Pale. The Rossinov family changed its name to Harris (based on my grandfather’s first name, Herschel) around 1930.
My mother’s family were musicians; quite quickly in England becoming far more high-falutin’ type musicians than the klezmer musicians in Rags, although I suspect my family arrived performing in much that style.
Grandpa Lew, sitting, with Great Uncle Max standing. Max was already an accomplished musician (strings) when they came to England, Grandpa Lew came as an infant and was never trained as a musician, but I’m told could play pretty much anything on the piano by ear. I inherited none of that.
More importantly, much of the big picture story of Rags resonates very strongly today, I’d argue to a greater extent than it did in 1986. Anti-immigration is a large element of the Brexit saga and also the Trump experience in the USA. The issues around ghettoisation, cultural assimilation and the like are very much with us, albeit not so much in the Jewish community any more. Questions around whether migrants are desirable for sound economic reasons, wanted for reasons of commercial exploitation, accepted because allowing migration is the right thing to do or not wanted at all – these questions are high on the agenda in most nations.
Despite my reservations about the book and some of the songs, I think this is a really super production and a performance piece for our time; it has the potential to do extremely well.
So what did I really think about Lydia White’s performance?
I can try to compare it to the many performances of Newsrevue casts I have seen. On that score, I can honestly say that her performance would be a standout in that environment. An environment where standout performers (e.g. from my era, Dorthy Atkinson and Rosie Cavaliero) have tended to go on to have very successful careers.
In Rags The Musical, the whole cast is very strong and/but Lydia more than holds her own in that company. For a professional debut I think it is an extremely assured and talent-packed start to her career.
It was also a great pleasure to chat with Lydia for a while after the show and learn/observe what a friendly, tight-knit group the company seems to be. Lydia won’t get that everywhere she goes in her show business career, but it’s good news that her first production is such a good one with such a together company.
Blood Knot at the Orange Tree was also excellent, but if I was only going to see one of these productions, I’d personally choose Aloes, both for the play and for the production.
We saw a preview of Blood Knot, but I think my comments will apply throughout the run.
Blood Knot is a relentlessly grim play. The play is about two half-brothers in Port Elizabeth who are Cape Coloured, to use the hateful vernacular of the South African Apartheid regime. One is light-skinned and could pass for white, while the other is dark-skinned and is more likely to be regarded as black.
The poverty and hopelessness of the brothers’ situation pervades the whole play. The brothers are extremely well portrayed by Nathan McMullen and Kalungi Ssebandeke.
But the play is very slow. Especially the first half. Let’s be honest about this – and I am an Athol Fugard fan saying this – Fugard plays tend to start very slow. Lengthy periods of scene-setting and atmosphere-generating are intrinsic to Fugard’s style.
Blood Knot is especially slow to build. It is an early work and I think Fugard himself would admit that his craft as a playwright improved with experience.
It was a ground-breaking piece in its time; 1961. Fugard himself played Morrie and was testing the boundaries of Apartheid law; loopholes which for a while allowed white and black actors to appear on stage together.
All this and more about the horrible history of racist laws, South African colonialism and the Cape Coloured community are explained in fascinating essays in this production’s programme. I don’t often specifically commend a programme but this one I found hugely informative and interesting.
At the start of the interval, Janie pondered leaving before the second half, but then came round to the idea of seeing the production through.
By the end of the evening, she was really pleased she decided to see the second half – as was I. Still not racey, but the piece makes far more sense as a whole and the second half answers at least some of the questions at a reasonable lick.
Not the very best of Fugard, but still very much worth seeing.
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