Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep

cutting bell peppers and adding googly eyes is bound to heal your soul a little, give it a try pic.twitter.com/E8DWRY2D8S

— Rob N Roll (@thegallowboob) August 19, 2021

The Middle East’s woes have only just begun.

 Insert your own confession here.

These are the times that try mens' souls

Eleven and a half years after I was asked to help out the Disaster Emergency Committee with their Haiti work (see Icons passim), the country is suffering after another earthquake.

I learned a lot on that campaign. First, how well off we are over here. I remember just getting out of the shower before I set off to the offices. I was toweling myself off, feeling fresh and good when it occurred to me hardly anyone on the island could even aspire to a day revolving around that fragrant and comfortable set point.

DEC comprises ActionAid, Action Against Hunger, British Red Cross, CAFOD, CARE International, Christian Aid, Concern,  Age UK, Islamic Relief, Oxfam, Plan UK, Save the Children, Tearfund  and World Vision.

There is power, efficiency and wisdom in that collegiate structure as opposed to a top-down approach. Age UK knew people with the same specialization in Haiti, ditto  Save the Children. Help was targeted via these networks in a way that simply wouldn't happen with a broad brush (slap dash?) approach.

How long will this separation and this hatred last?

Thursdays are traditionally "poetry night" in the city of Herat when men, women and children gather and recite both ancient and modern poems.

I'm still working through the Arabian Nights at the rate of one night per day. Night 289 finishes with a girl reciting a poem at a dinner party.

How long will this separation and this hatred last 

Until the joy that has passed returns to me again? 

We lived together in the same country; 

In our enjoyment we thought the envious paid no heed. 

But time betrayed us, forcing us to part; 

Leaving our dwellings like a barren waste. 

You censure me; do you want me to be consoled? 

My heart, I see, will not obey your voice.

Abandon blame and leave me with my love. 

For love is not yet emptied from my heart. 

You broke your oath and chose another love, 

But, though you are away, my heart will not forget.

Poignant doesn't begin to cover it, the day after Kabul fell.

My Muse Does All the Work

 

I have been playing around with an app called MuseScore trying to write a lead sheet. Very happy with it so far.

Cyrano, My Love

 

I stumbled across this and can't seem to find a way to see it,  I need to see it.

a bum note

We went to see Bach & Sons last night. The Bridge Theatre is a nice venue that is new to me, but the play itself is an affront to good writing.

UEFA Super Cup

What a start to the season!! Another one🏆💙🔥 pic.twitter.com/xYMbcyNrdw

— Callum Hudson-Odoi (@Calteck10) August 11, 2021

See also Callum Hudson-Odoi hires out Thorpe Park to thank NHS staff and key workers for their efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sunrise, sunset, Swiftly fly the years

Sunset Trailer 2021 from Wimbledon BookFest on Vimeo.

Anything Goes

October is now sorted out in my pre-book something live each month campaign. August (Thursday actually) is Bach & Co and September is Kurt Elling at Ronnie Scott's.

Any ideas for November?

The March of Time

My brother John's not too far away today interviewing a client so he will visit this evening, we'll go for a drink then a curry and he'll drive back in the morning.

Both my diary and these spindrift pages say the last time this happened was at the beginning of March 2020, all but a year and a half ago. Chalk up (or is it down?) another withering on the vine to the malign COVID blow back.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Gold: Always believe in your soul

 

After the disappointment of the Lions losing the test series to South Africa yesterday, Wales' Lauren Price wining an Olympic boxing gold medal this morning has bucked my spirits up again. Overall the UK finishes the Olympics fourth in the medal table. Not too shabby.

Also Prince William does a fine job interviewing her about her remarkable life story above, by being friendly, modest and unassuming. 

Now is steel 'twixt bowel and bladder interposed

The NHS has sent me a bowel cancer screening test kit. Considering Paul is due an operation for it and Neil has actually I had one, I suppose I had better do it.

It is probably wishful thinking to assume that reading Improved Detection of Elusive Polyps via Machine Learning form the Google AI Blog has covered me already.

BLUE ZUSHI

 

Rebecca sent me this last night as her Charlie is involved in the visuals though not the music. Not really  man's ting cuz, but happy to spread the news. It does my heart good to see it was largely filmed around the tube station

A Stinging Delight

PG bought me A Stinging Delight: A Memoir by David Storey for my birthday. (A hardback mind you!)

I am "creeping like snail, unwillingly to school" though it. Not because it isn't good, it is great. I am almost unendurably moved. A clause in a sentence can send me off into an introspective reverie.

John Patrick Anthony Browne (born 8 March 1933) and David Malcolm Storey (born 13 July 1933) were contemporaries. Perhaps that has something to do with the resonance. 

"I will finish it eventually" is high and sincere praise. Unlikely to appear in the blurb on the back of the paperback though.

Vaxxers

 I woke up this morning to learn from the Today programme that a Barbie of Oxford Covid vaccine designer Dame Sarah Gilbert has been created.

Perhaps by coincidence, my latest Audible book selection is Vaxxers: The Inside Story of the Oxford AstraZeneca Vaccine and the Race Against the Virus by Sarah Gilbert and Catherine Green. So far it is really remarkably good.

It is Mum's 84th birthday today, Who do I talk to about getting a Bernice Browne Barbie doll?

Left on Afghanistan's Plains

BBC

Afghanistan: Street fighting rages as Taliban attack key city

Ferocious fighting is taking place in a major Afghan city, amid fears it could be the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban.

Lashkar Gah in southern Helmand province is under heavy assault from the militants, despite persistent US and Afghan air strikes.

https://nickbrowne.coraider.com/search?q=helmand will show you what I have written over the years.

Read the heartbreaking Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards and the Real Story of Britain's War in Afghanistan about Helmand. What did those boys give their lives for?

John Reid, Secretary of State for Defense, committed 3,300 troops to Helmand province, Afghanistan in January 2006. Speaking to the media Reid said "We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years and without firing one shot because our job is to protect the reconstruction." In the first year about 4 million bullets and 25,000 artillery rounds were fired by the British armed forces.

John Reid is was and ever shall be a sanctimonious prick, as widows and orphans can attest.

Ronan Keating: The Beginning

Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning has dropped on Netflix so Ben is coming round this evening to watch it with me. Perhaps confusingly for a series of five films "The Beginning" is a prequel.

I can see from my Amazon orders that I bought the first film on December 18th last year, so this has been a seven and a half month saga for the two of us.

I have linked my Fire TV with the Echo that sits below it, so according to Amazon, I should be able to start the movie by announcing "Alexa, play Rorouni Kenshin."

I tried it this morning.

The reply, "playing songs by Ronan Keating, " came back in a flash!

A feature that still needs work, I suggest.

Ronnie's

The Maytals at the Jazz Cafe has been cancelled, so I have had to arrange something else for September. Kurt Elling at Ronnie Scott's on the eighteenth has stepped into the breach.

Andy M is coming. I can remember going with him to see Arturo Sandoval at Ronnie's because his brother Phil was in the support. Andy thinks this was about twenty years ago. I have done some research and I think it is more like thirty five.

Breaks down like this: I know I met Andy in 1985 when we were both working on a project at the . Grangemouth Oil refinery. I am sure about this because I know I was back in London in February 1986 to start my MBA at the City University Business School. 

There's an album Arturo Sandoval — No Problem - Recorded Live At Ronnie Scott's Club released in 1987 but recorded in August 1986. Today is August 2021. I think I must be right about this.

Highbrowne

 Half past eight this morning.

Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry  

Have also nicknamed my new (still unboxed) robot vacuum cleaner Muriel.

A message from beyond the grave

 

The Umbrella Academy

The man is genuinely beyond parody even given the high level set at  https://nickbrowne.coraider.com/2010/10/le-parapluie-uncassable.html

Hang Fire Southern Kitchen

Blimey John, we met Shauna of the Hang Fire Southern Kitchen more than six years ago (see Icons passim).

Here's the post I was talking about that explains their decision only to open three days a week until September due to staff shortages.

 

What a long slow death we are dying.

Rant

Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick's announcement (outside the Old Bailey of all places) that "everyone in policing feels betrayed,” by PC Wayne Couzens’ murder of Sarah Everard was tin-eared and ludicrously complacent. Apparently his is a crime that “sickened, angered and devastated” London’s policing community. Poor old put-upon Commissioner and poor old put-upon capital policing community eh. What am I supposed to do, pass a helmet around and take a collection for them?

The stark truth is that until the Met takes responsibility for the fact that this heinous crime was committed by a serving police officer the organisation will not be able to take appropriate action to reduce the chances of it happening again. Cressida Dick's attempt to include the force among the victims of PC Couzens is slippery, crass, solipsistic nonsense.

Ditto the Home Secretary's asinine announcement last week of paltry gestures that will "bring together the incredible work of police officers around the country and create a consistent response to ending these appalling crimes". Verbatim quote; my italics. Just take a moment to savour it. If the work is already incredible what will it be like once it has been improved, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?

I recommend that the Home Office and the Police themselves stop telling us how marvelously competent and sensitive they are, and let the public work it out for itself.

I am currently prescribing a period of modest and sincere self-reflection for UK law enforcement.

You see a lot doctor, but are you strong enough to be able to point that high-powered perception at yourself or are you afraid to?

Clarice Starling to Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.

Play it, Sam

We went to Sam's Riverside last week for the prix fixe menu. £20 for two courses and £25 for three. I plumped for two; rainbow trout with endive, then onglet steak in an oriental sauce with broccoli. It was yummy in my tummy.

I have never had, or indeed heard of onglet before. Herewith the skinny.

What is onglet?

Onglet is the French name for a cut more commonly known in English as hanger steak. This rather forgotten choice is a flat cut from the diaphragm or lower belly. It is very loosely textured, can have a tendon running through it, weighs about 400g/1lb and is also known as butcher’s steak, because it is said butchers recognised its superior flavour and thus never put it on display but kept it for themselves.

The special attraction of onglet is a big beefy flavour but some people find it rather strong because of overtones of liver and kidney. It is especially good to serve with highly flavoured sauces.

Makes sense.

Ups and Downs

The Lions won yesterday but I have woken this morning to the disappointing news that two-time champion Jade Jones lost in her first match at the Tokyo Olympics to Kimia Alizadeh of the Refugee Olympic Team.

I don't think I have ever heard of the Refugee Olympic Team before, maybe that is because this is the only the second time there has been one. It made its debut at Rio in 2016 - https://olympics.com/ioc/refugee-olympic-team

The 2020 roster is on https://olympics.com/en/topics/ioc-refugee-olympic-team-tokyo-2020

Kimia Alizadeh was originally from Iran.

Jade Jones tomorrow

 Independent

When is the event?

Sunday 25 July, with the first qualification contest starting at 2am BST.

Which round will Jones compete from?

Jade Jones enters the competition from the round of 16, which starts from 2:28am.

Her fight is 3:52am and will be against the winner of the qualification contest.

The quarter-finals start from 6:12am, while the semi-finals are shortly after 8:04 am and repechages from 11am.

Should Jones go the distance once more, the gold medal contest will be at 1:30pm.

With any luck I will have an appointment with BBC1 early tomorrow afternoon.

Grandad, Grandad, You're Lovely

I watched Jade Jones: Fighting for Gold on the BBC iPlayer last night.  I have been a rabid Welsh fan of hers since she won her first Olympic title in 2012. My transition from someone who had never seen taekwondo before to a conspiracy theorist who thought, before she prevailed, that the judges weren't giving her a fair crack of the whip as I watched it on the telly was a miracle to behold.

I am writing this later than usual as I have been on the road all day. A by-product though is that I heard Jessica Ennis-Hill on Desert Island Discs.

I was very struck that for both if these extraordinary athletes, their maternal grandfather was a high influence and driving force.

In Audible

 This month's Audible credit has gone on The Tender Bar: A Memoir by J. R. Moehringer.

At 8 years old, suddenly unable to find The Voice on the radio, J. R. turned in desperation to the bar on the corner, where he found a rousing chorus of new voices. The alphas along the bar - including J. R.'s uncle Charlie, a Humphrey Bogart look-alike; Colt, a Yogi Bear sound-alike; and Joey D, a softhearted brawler - took J. R. to the beach, to ballgames, and, ultimately, into their circle. They taught J. R., tended him, and provided a kind of fathering by committee. Torn between the stirring example of his mother and the lurid romance of the bar, J. R. tried to forge a self somewhere in the center. But when it was time for J. R. to leave home, the bar became an increasingly seductive sanctuary, a place to return and regroup during his picaresque journeys. Time and again the bar offered shelter from failure, rejection, heartbreak - and, eventually, reality. 

I wonder why that spoke to me? (I had never heard of JR Moerhinger until it emerged that he will ghost write Prince Harry's magnum opus due next year.

During the month (when I also bought some more credits to pick up the latest Fry Wodehouse) I also picked up The New Testament: A Translation by David Bentley Hart.

The early Christians' sometimes raw, astonished, and halting prose challenges the idea that the New Testament affirms the kind of people we are. Hart reminds us that they were a company of extremists, radical in their rejection of the values and priorities of society not only at its most degenerate, but often at its most reasonable and decent.

"To live as the New Testament language requires," he writes, "Christians would have to become strangers and sojourners on the earth, to have here no enduring city, to belong to a Kingdom truly not of this world. And we surely cannot do that, can we?"

I wonder why that spoke to me?

Letters from Baghdad

 

I watched this movie on Prime the night before last.  Even if you haven't got Prime you can rent it for 99p. Gertrude Bell's story is remarkable in itself, but the images and footage are also very resonant as we work our way through the Arabian Nights.

When I was round the Hendries' last night, there was a question about Ms Bell on the quiz show playing on the kitchen TV in the background. You may say:

a. That I aced it.

b. That I didn't tell them I had watched a 90 minute documentary about her the day before.

Down By the Riverside

Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company Cancels THE BROWNING VERSION Due to Increasing COVID-19 Absenseshttps://t.co/KnECwcPIQh

— BroadwayWorld UK (@BroadwayWorldUK) July 18, 2021

I guess that was due to go in after "Happy Days" which we saw on Sunday closed. It must be a body blow to the Studios.

Killing time on Sunday, I was waiting in front of a screen that was scrolling through highlights from the Riverside's archive, and discovered that  John Sessions' satirical solo The Life of Napoleon played there in 1987. Thirty four years ago! Blimey, I can remember going to see it as I was working around the corner at Wimpey. I can even recall talking to John Sessions after it in the bar. 

Today's other theatrical revelation is that I know now the name (see Icons passim) of the son of a cousin who went to RADA giving the family a London hat trick of that, Central and Guildhall when you add in my nieces. He is called Bart Lambert.

Spike Lee for President

We saw  Lisa Dwan as Winnie in Happy Days at Riverside Studios yesterday. It was terrific. That is my whole review. I also find that I am very much in favour of Sunday matinees.

Spike Lee commented as follows when he made a mistake at Cannes and announced the winner of the Palme d'Or prematurely,  'I have no excuses, I messed up. I'm a big sports fan. It´s like the guy at the end of the game who misses the free throw.' 

If we had politicians with the cojones to say 'I have no excuses, I messed up" occasionally we would be a lot better off.

05:45

 I pretty much always catch the news on Radio 4 at six in the morning.

On Sundays there is a fifteen minute called Profile (an insight into the character of an influential figure making news headlines) on before it.

Today's was about Mark Cavendish, and I caught maybe the last five minutes of it. 

I had no idea that his achievements at this year's Tour de France came after illness and injury, or that he only secured a place in the team at the absolute last minute.

I might start setting the alarm a quarter of an hour earlier.

a smiple favour

I had to walk Ollie back home from the pub last night. Her arm is in a sling and there was stuff we needed to transport.

When we got there Andy offered me a drink and - it being rude to decline - I accepted.

We watched the start of a film called "A Simple Favour" on BBC. I was rather taken with it so I have added to my Amazon wish list.

I think that she killed both her husband and her missing "friend" but don't tell me if I am right or wrong.

4120Z003

Britons who received an Indian-made version of the AstraZeneca vaccine are being barred from travelling to foreign holiday destinations, according to reports.

 The batches at issue are 4120Z001, 4120Z002 and 4120Z003.

4120Z003 is the one I got.

Jeff Bezos and space will have to wait.

Soul Music

BBC Radio 4's peripatetic series Soul Music reappeared with a new episode yesterday. It tries to marry es the stories of songs  (one per episode) by the creators with testimony from people whose lives they have affected.

The first episode was about Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat. As a rule I could live without that, but last time I was in Cardiff Phil told me that Mike Ede has got a job this summer as Jimmy Somerville's driver on his tour and - for some reason - I found that juxtaposition very funny.

Coming up next Wednesday morning The Carpenters' We've only just begun is likely to be much more up my street.

I robot

I don't actually own a vacuum. I used to rely on the cleaners but they haven't been here since lockdown started over a year ago. 

I have bitten the bullet today and the Hosome Robot Vacuum Cleaner, Robot Vacuum Cleaner With Mop 1900Pa, Alexa & APP & WiFi, Strong Suction, Slim, Quiet, Smart Self-Charging Robotic Vacuum Cleaner for Hard Floor to Carpet is winging its way to me from Amazon.

when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:

 

It is not as if we are world class skin-flints but I still hope that MPs will vote later against the government's cut to the UK's foreign aid budget. Spending on international development was cut from 0.7% of national income to 0.5% in response to increased spending in the pandemic, despite a commitment to spending 0.7% in the party's 2019 election manifesto. Meeting the 0.7% figure was made law in 2015.

About last night

It's rugby gnome, it's rugby gnome
It's rugby, Gareth rugby gnome

Repeat to fade.

Oldboy

 

Sean has recommended a film to me, something he rarely if ever does:

Try to approach Oldbboy without reading anything about it first. One midnight, a few years ago, Film 4 had drifted from one movie to the next without me noticing as I sat doing some editing or a crossword or something. Then I found myself starting to pay attention to what was on screen, and thought 'What the fxck is this?'

I have watched it now (£2.99 to buy or 99p to rent on Amazon) and pass on a similar unadorned, pot-spoiler-free high-five to all of you.

Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend

P.G. Wodehouse Volume 1: The Jeeves Collection narrated by Stephen Fry is 40 hrs and 37 mins of meaty goodness, and a staple of my Audible library.

The 45 hrs and 27 mins of P. G. Wodehouse Volume 2, The Blandings Collection narrated by Stephen Fry  came out the day before yesterday. This is without a doubt where my monthly credit will go when it comes around on the twentieth.

I do hope that Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend is in it. I remember it as Dad's very favourite, so even if it strictly wasn't the fact remains emotionally true for me. Here'a a quote from it:

'But why the dooce couldn’t Ern have - er - pinched them for himself? Strong, able-bodied young feller, I mean.’

Lord Emsworth, a member of the old school, did not like this disposition on the part of the modern young man to shirk the dirty work and let the woman pay.

As ever with Wodehouse, a phrase I regularly use "old school" appears though I had forgotten its origin.

(The Folio Society six volume set The Best of Blandings consisting of Summer Lightning, Heavy Weather, Uncle Fred in the Springtime, Full Moon, Pigs Have Wings, and Service with a Smile, remains on my bookshelf. My Wodehouse strategy incluing both belt and braces.)

October

July, August and September now being sorted, I think I will go and see The Beauty Queen of Leenane at the Lyric in Hammersmith in October. 

Rachel O’Riordan, the director,  was appointed Artistic Director and CEO of the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre in February 2019.  Previously, she was the Artistic Director and CEO of Sherman Theatre from February 2014 – February 2019. I wonder if PG or either of my actress nieces know her? Maybe I could even persuade the former to come along?

Get your priorities right

Guardian

Welsh red: ex-postal worker and retired nurse grab gold with a pinot noir

Monmouthshire’s White Castle Vineyard scoops top prize against global rivals in prestigious blind tasting award

First it was English winemakers that had vineyards in traditional wine-making regions such as France looking over their shoulder, now it is Wales, after a “deliciously fresh” pinot noir from Monmouthshire scooped a prestigious wine award.

White Castle Vineyard’s “pinot noir reserve 2018”, a red wine that costs £25.50 a bottle, has become the first Welsh vintage to win a gold medal in the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA).

In other news

England fans are 90 minutes away from seeing the men’s national team win a major tournament for the first time in more than half a century after Harry Kane sent the Three Lions to the Euro 2020 final.

After the captain scored the winning goal on the rebound after his extra-time penalty had been saved,60,000 fans in Wembley were sent into delirium along with millions of fans around the country.

Oh, Bach without any doubt. Bach every time for me...

I booked tickets for Simon Russell Beale in Nina Raine's new play Back & Sons directed by Nicholas Hytner at the Bridge Theatre. They are for August 12th. 

Happy Days at the Riverside is already in the bank for July and we have got the Maytals at the Jazz Cafe in September.

One a month is coming back online as the world wakes up again. next stop October.

Great oxymorons of our time: smart motorway

I had the bright idea of driving to Cardiff from Hammersmith on Sunday. Bad move:

The M4 will be closed in both directions over the weekend of 2 July – 5 July 2021 between Junctions 4b (M25 interchange) and 5 (Langley). The closure will start after 8pm Friday 2 July and the motorway will reopen by 6am on Monday 5 July.

There are closures every weekend for a while going forward see M4 junctions 3-12: smart motorway - Highways England

I note though that if I drive from home I go on the M3 and then take the A329(M) that joins the M4 at junction 10. That is beyond the currently announced closure schedule which ony goes as far as junction 9. Rules out the PG-Hammersmith-Cardiff plan for the foreseeable though.

Watch this space

 PG told me yesterday that Uncle Michael and Auntie Philomena's grandson went to RADA. Chalk another drama school up for the family.

Our Food, Our Family

I turned on the telly after our weekly Sype with Mum yesterday and caught an episode of a show called Our Food, Our Family with Michela Chiappa.

It was about a woman called Kemi Nevins. Born in 1962 to Nigerian parents studying medicine in London, at the age of six months Kemi was temporarily fostered by a British family. At the age of six, once her parents had qualified, she was taken back to Lagos. She couldn't settle though and returned to Britain and her foster parents. It was all rather moving, I must try and get to her Pontcanna Cafe next time I am back in Cardiff for a Saturday.

Reading up on the series online, I also realksed I had half watched the first episode (about Welsh Italians) with mum when I was visiting her before COVID. It seems like a lifetime ago.

#TheatricalDynasty

Bethany Mia has been accepted into the BA Honours in Acting acting BA at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. You know, the place where, snigger, Dominic West and Lily James Larry Olivier and "Judo" Dench went. We are all beside ourselves.

See Icons passim.

Pregnant women will give up their seats for me

If you're 60 or over and live in a London borough, you can get free travel on our transport services with an Oyster photocard.

Sweet. If I can find time in my busy schedule to go through the rigmarole of getting a 60+ London Oyster photocard, my trips to and from the Jazz Cafe will be free.

The New Hideaway?

We have got tickets for the Maytals at the Jazz Cafe for early in September. Although the Jazz Cafe is a long way from here, it is just a moment's walk from the Camden Town tube station, and the Northern Line can take me from Colliers Wood to Camden Town in little over half an hour.

Maybe it can take over the role that the Hideaway once played in my life?

Here's waht's on - https://thejazzcafelondon.com/whats-on/

Pentalogy

Ben is due round tonight to watch Rurouni Kenshin: The Final. John has warned us against the dubbed version, so we will go with subtitles. He says that - once you have invested your imagination in the first three - unfamiliar voices jar.

I must show the Bomber the video of Takeru Satoh training above. First, it is very impressive. But second it shows we were right about why Kenshin is forever running along the sides of walls. It's a difficult trick the actor can actually do.

The fifth and final film - a prequel - should be along later this year.

A SONG ABOUT WORDSWORTH

Now ole man Wordsworth, so they say

‘E liked to roam the ‘ills,

Wiv ‘is butterfly net an’ ‘is botany book,

An’ a sixpenny packet o’ Wills.

An’ when e’ come ‘ome in the twilight,

You’d ‘ear is missus cry:

“Now Willie, me lad, where the ‘ell ‘a you bin?”

And Willie’ e’d reply:

“I’ve been looking for daisies:

A daisy drives me wild,

An’ whenever I see a primrose

I giggle just like a child.”

Then ‘is wife says, “Chuck yer kiddin’,

I can’t swaller that stuff –

The only daisy that tickles you

Is a bit o’ mountain fluff.”

 One night ‘e come ‘ome extra late

Wiv ‘is eyes all glowin’ bright

An’ is wife says, “Where you bin to, mate,

T’ come ‘ome this time o’ night?”

An’ Will ‘e answers ‘er promptly,

“I’m nearly orf me ‘ead,

For I’ve found another new kind o’ bird” –

But ‘is missus ups and said:

 “You an’ yer bloomin’ daisies,

An’ yer different kind o’ bird,

Is about the fishiest story

Wot ever I ‘ave ‘eard,

‘Op off, then, back to yer ‘ill-tops

An’ yer innocent nature-stuff –

An’ I’ll warrant the bird that sings to you

Is a bit o’ mountain fluff.”

In Wordsworth's Footsteps: Radio 4.

Wordsworth and the Romantics: Gresham College

Radical Wordsworth: The Poet Who Changed the World is this month's audible credit purchase.

The Rain It Raineth Every Day

We had an inch of rain last night. One inch of rainfall equals 4.7 gallons of water per square yard in old school units.

I woke in the night to the racket of a torrential downpour what sounded like a strange clicking sound. On investigation the clicks were drips coming through the ceiling in the spare room. I put a saucepan on the damp patch to catch whatever else fell and retired back to my pit.

All is well this morning and there is not even really any noticeable mark on the ceiling but something must be done. (Given how bone idle I am probably by the next lucky owner of the house.)

Sports

 I went to the Standard yesterday to see Wales knocked out of the Euros by Denmark.

After that we switched channels to see Harlequins beat Exeter in the Premiership Final. When Louis Lynagh, son of the Australian great Michael, scored two tries in the final ten minutes Andy reminded me that he used to be the full back in the Richmond team that Ben and Jonnie used to play against for the Ruts in Surrey League 1. I can't really remember him myself even though he would have been Ben's opposite number.

The Outlaw

Torygraph (behind paywall)

The Catholic Church denounced The Outlaw and lobbied against its release. Production Code enforcers denied the film a certificate of approval, prompting a legal battle in numerous state courts.

One Californian judge famously quipped that Russell’s breasts “hung over the picture like a thunderstorm over a landscape. They were everywhere”. The film had a limited release in 1946 – when the Catholic Church excommunicated anyone who saw it – and did not gain a national release until 1950, and only then after 136 “lurid” close-ups of Russell were reportedly removed.

This same film was on BBC at ten past ten this morning. Fill your boots at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zp6cd.

Mum laughed like a drain about this earlier today and it lead to an hilarious series of stories and memories about confession. I for one thank Howard Hughes just for that.

This is the very essence of the way of the Samurai

 Now that I am sixty I think that I may be on the brink of a breakthrough in my practice. 

Mushin (無心) is the essence of Zen. It is a state in which the mind is not fixed on or occupied by any thought or emotion.

This pure state, this pure mental clarity, is produced by the absence of the ego or limited self.

For myself I translate 無心 as "absent-mind." As I enter my seventh decade I find the state of absent-mindedness has become more, and more easily, accessible.

Where did I put my keys?

What have I come upstairs looking for?

Who is this person at the front door and what does she want?

I just stand there. "When the swordsman stands against his opponent, he is not to think of the opponent, nor of himself, nor of his enemy's sword movements. He just stands there with his sword forgetful of all technique. He has effaced himself as the wielder of the sword. When he strikes, it is not the man but the sword in his hand that strikes."

What were we talking about again?

Us again

We went to the Curzon Wimbledon last night to see "The Father." (I think it is the first time I have been to the movies since Ben and I saw Guy Ritchie's "The Gentlemen" in January 2020. How cinemas have survived lockdown is a miracle.)

As for the film itself, having lost Dad under not dissimilar circumstances, I am too raw to write about it. I spoke to my brother over the phone when I got in. He in turn told me about a Disney+ short "Us Again." His daughter said that the beginning of it was like watching a documentary about my mother and father, her grandparents. John agreed with her, so it is one for the list, but maybe something to watch on my own ...... something in my eye.

Tooting my horn

 

Almost my own surprise I greatly enjoyed the Summerstown walk last night.

Here's to Life

No complaints and no regrets

I still believe in chasing dreams and placing bets

But I have learned that all you give is all you get

So give it all you've got

I had my share

I drank my fill

And even though I'm satisfied

I'm hungry still

To see what's down another road beyond the hill

And do it all again

Happy birthday to me. 60 today.

Isn't it romantic?

You won't have read about it here, but I have been working my way through the Reformation and the Enlightenment. I found them both wanting; maybe the nuns and Christian Brothers that educated me cast a longer shadow than I previously imagined. 

Next up Romanticism. 

I found Isiah Berlin's 1965 lectures on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_9uxkmfSIt2JJK6oKbXmd-

For Berlin, the Romantics set in motion a vast, unparalleled revolution in humanity’s view of itself. They destroyed the traditional notions of objective truth and validity in ethics with incalculable, all-pervasive results.

Crikey! Also Ben's up in the Lake District this week; Wordsworth and Coleridge territory. Something in the air as we move in parallel perhaps?

The Final?

 

RUROUNI KENSHIN: THE FINAL has dropped on Netflix. Ben and I watched the first three films of the series with sushi back in February. It looks like it is time to pick up the chopsticks again.

Epic Iran

 

The Iranian Presidential was on yesterday though I don't think the result has been announced yet. It also reminded me that - as well as the Theatre - we went to the Epic Iran exhibition at the V&A last Thursday and that I hadn't yet recorded that here.

Under Milk Wood

I went to Under Milk Wood at the National last night. It is the first time I have been to the theatre since I saw Paapa at the Kiln last February.

I also saw Mia for the first time in London since she started at Central. The wages of lock-down eh?

Saturday In The Park

I don't want to tempt fate, but we are having a picnic at Roath Park in Cardiff on Saturday to celebrate my nephew's 21st and it looks like my mum will be able to come. Released from the home where she resides for the afternoon and able to return without being quarantined.

Playlist: Saturday in the Park - Chicage

Tart enough for you?

I delivered chunks of salmon marinaded in chilli pesto to the Hendries' last night so that it could be run through their dehydrator and we could  snack on it during the Wales v Turkey footie today.

It turned out very well. Next time I would add a little more salt and remove the skin but it was pretty darn good. One of my favourites so far.

hottest day of year so far as temperature hits 28.6C

Myself: Honey, do me a favor. Run to the drug store and get me a lemon coke with chipped ice. Will you do that for me, sweetie, please.

Prodnose: What on earth are you on about now?

Myself: There's no air conditioning. Whenever the temperature goes above 28 degrees centigrade I become the flawed, lamenting heroine of a Tennessee Williams play.

Prodnose: Rubbish.

Myself: Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable. It is the one unforgivable thing in my opinion and it is the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty

GB News

GB News: Andrew Neil’s right-leaning live news channel, which aims to take on the leftie, “woke” orthodoxy of mainstream British media has launched.

I have just returned my TV to pick it up via Freeview. It is on channel 236 just below Russia Today and Al Jazeera. Not the mos prominent of slots though Freeview seems to bunch news outlets together in the two hundred and thirties. I wonder if I will ever watch it again.

That said, I wonder if the tide is turning, I went to a Wimbledon Bookfest session (Tim Marshall: The Power of Geography) on Saturday and was truly impressed by the level and variety of the questions asked from the floor at the end of the session. They were informed, detailed and heterodox. I would have expected an audience on the Common to mouth bien pensant platitudes, but we had, for example,  provocative broadly right-wing questions that were dealt with seriously without the pearl-clutching that we would get if anyone ever asked them on the BBC. Also the questions referred to things like the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which - though germane to the talk - hadn't been mentioned in the presentation; a sign of a reflective, well informed listener.

Death at Deepcut

Documentary producer John Battsek, whose credits include Oscar-winner One Day In September and Emmy-winner Manhunt: The Inside Story Of The Hunt for Bin Laden, has made his first foray into podcasts with Audible series Death at Deepcut.

Between 1995 and 2002 four young trainee soldiers were found dead at a military training camp outside London, Deepcut....

I will listen with interest. We know a little about this peripherally as we got a forensic job analysing the backup tapes from the dispatch system Surrey Police were running at the time, as they no longer had any way of reading them. (That's a problem we'll see more and more of I think.)

What is it that you can't see?

I always try and get along to at least one event at Wimbledon Bookfest. I like to see how it is progressing physically as we have skin in the game with their IT.

I'm booked in for Tim Marshall: The Power of Geography at 2pm this afternoon. That, foolishly, was booked before I realised with Wales' first game in the Euros. I will have to try and find a pub on the common where I can catch the end of the match, which in turn means I'll have to go on the bus rather than drive.

I watched Alastair Campbell live over the video link on Thursday. It all went off seamlessly. Who would have imagined just a few years ago that such a simulcast from a park would even be possible for a small organisation as opposed to a broadcaster?

This web page is on strike

 

The TUC website's '404 error' page has cheered me up this morning. Very refreshing in this po-faced age.

Catch the Pidgin

President Nana Akufo-Addo start dey lobby for Chelsea player to play for Black Stars

Callum is in Ghana on holiday and has met the president. Despite having played three time for England at senior level he still has the option to transfer his loyalties to mother and father's country.

Ghana start dey push for Chelsea player, Callum Hudson-Odoi to play for Black Stars.

Prez Akufo-Addo make dis revelation after en meeting plus de Chelsea attacker on Monday.

Callum Hudson-Odoi who dey Ghana for holidays meet with Prez Nana Akufo-Addo who make am clear say e go like have de player in de national team.

Who knew that the BBC had a Pidgin news service? Certainly not me.

We can start to learn more at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-40975399. I wonder if there is a sense in which Pidgin is to West Africa what Swahili is to East Africa?

My local is closed

 

It was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that it would last forever: I was wrong.

The bars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

The Night We Called it a Day

We are still working through the Arabian Nights (Icons passim) at the rate of one a day using the Malcolm Lyons translation. As of this morning we are up to night 219.

‘Damn you, you evil slave, do you dare to carry a message of treachery from the wife of your master? By God, there is no good in you. Your colour is black and so is the record of your deeds. You are ugly to look at and your nature is despicable.’

.... says al-Amjad to a blameless eunuch before chopping off his head and reminding us that slavery and racism are not an exclusively Western phenomenon

ev'n at the turning o' th' tide

I was back in the gym for the first time this year yesterday.

I have got my second COVID jab today.

With any luck we will be back at the Antelope pub quiz tonight for the first time since the first lock down.

Dare we dream?

Happy Days

Happy Days at the Riverside (11 June to 25 July) is running a Sunday matinee. I think that needs to be my July theatre date (Under Milk Wood is June's) as the world starts to come back to life.

Tony Hopkins' Oscar bagging The Father is on there for a week as well (11-17 June) so I will try and catch that next Sunday as well perhaps.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow

Ben had three bikes nicked out of the back garden last week. One of them a motocross dirt bike I got him. It hit him pretty hard. I will need to remember approximately when it happened at some time in the future I am sure. The best way to be able to do that is to record it here. More in sorrow than in anger, though there is plenty of anger.

Galton Professor of Eugenics

Yesterday's Lionel Penrose was for a while Galton Professor of Eugenics at UCL

Wikipedia

Penrose was a central figure in British medical genetics following World War II. From 1945 to 1965, he worked as Galton Professor at the Galton Laboratory at University College London. The first title of his chair was "Professor of Eugenics" (1945–1963), then he had it changed to "Professor of Human Heredity" (1963–1965). According to his successor, Professor Harry Harris, Penrose “never liked the name 'eugenics’, because it seemed to him to be too much associated with uninformed and dangerous policies of racial purification." Harris also reported the "long delay" in changing this name was due to "legal problems" associated with the original donation from Francis Galton and described how Penrose simply ignored the "eugenics" element of his job title.

That means that he personally is in the clear, but I still can't help but find the title from the perspective of 2021 irresistibly funny as opposed to infuriating.

Personally when it comes to eugenics I am with - as I am on so may other things - with Chesterton.  In 1922, but writing about a time before the Great War, he reminded us

It was a time when this theme was the topic of the hour; when eugenic babies (not visibly very distinguishable from other babies) sprawled all over the illustrated papers; when the evolutionary fancy of Nietzsche was the new cry among the intellectuals; and when Mr. Bernard Shaw and others were considering the idea that to breed a man like a cart-horse was the true way to attain that higher civilisation, of intellectual magnanimity and sympathetic insight, which may be found in cart-horses.

He was right when everyone else was wrong. That is a lot harder and nobler than what goes on now, when virtue signalling nobodies queue up to kick people when they are down, destroyed over the slightest transgression with no hope of reprieve,

Automatic Mechanical Self Replication

 

Sir Roger Penrose being my current man crush, I have stumbled on this video of his father's Lionel's work. It is the most extraordinary thing to see out of the blue. I couldn't believe my eyes. The implicit seeding principle is making steam come out of my ears.

(I think I was nattering on to PG over the weekend about Sir Roger's father and uncle both being in the Cambridge Apostles. Stumbled upon Dad looking for surrealist uncle Roland with whom Peter was familiar.)

Night Operation

I have been looking at Owen Barfield lately. 

Night Operation, his only work of science fiction, was written when he was well into his seventies. 

In the 22nd century humanity has taken to  inhabiting the sewers serving our present society because of a dread of terrorist and bio-chemical threats.

The overwhelming fear engendered by these phenomena coupled with economic collapse, as given rise to a society obsessed with security, standardisation and control of information.

It is only through a mixture of luck and the continuing existence of a few elderly people who have a dim awareness that life has wider significance that the chief character in the story, is able to break out of this horrific mental and physical prison, where the glories of human culture have been buried in a virtually inaccessible library and replaced with aspirational hedonism and an obsession with rote learning.

I think I'll get a copy, it may speak to us about what our response to COVID has wrought.

Get your kicks in W6

The Plum Cafe was closed yesterday, so Peter and I lit upon the Truth Cafe for his breakfast after getting his grocery shopping done. I'm noting it because he liked it and otherwise I will have forgotten if he wants to go again.

We happened to park by the discreetly secluded vegetarian restaurant The Gate, and I remembered going there with Chalice more than 25 years ago. I wonder how long ago I last thought of it?

The gourmet grocery shop Peter gets his fruit and veg in is called Hammersmith Natural at 194 Fulham Palace Rd, London W6 9PA. I'm noting it because I have never previously been able to remember its name but I noticed it on Google Maps when I was looking up the premises above.

What happens on the day?

The Burglar had a colonoscopy yesterday. I had to pick him up  from the Princess Royal University Hospital, and then hang about to make sure he was OK. He was asleep for the first few hours so I have caught up with all but the last episode of The Kominsky Method, and High on the Hog. Netflix to the rescue.

Here's the skinny on the procedure from the NHS https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/colonoscopy/

Westminster Cathedral, you're bringing me down

There is but one topic of conversation this morning among left-footers such as myself; how did the Prime Minister, who has now married three times, manage to have a wedding in a Catholic church?

Mr Johnson, I seem to recall, was baptised as a Catholic, but confirmed in the Anglican faith whilw he was an Eton. Covering his bets perhaps like Kate Bingham with COVID vaccines?

Two possibilities:

• In order to marry in a Catholic church, Mr Johnson could have had his two previous marriages recognised as annulled.
• Alternatively,  because he was baptised a Catholic, by not participating in Catholic ceremonies in his previous marriages, for which he would have required special dispensation from the Catholic church, those marriages would have "had a lack of canonical form" and could therefore be considered invalid.

Something to talk to mum about next Saturday if nothing else.

Freezer Jolly Good Fellow

The Onion

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA—Holding the icy brown mass aloft in a vain attempt to inspect it, local man Ralph Freeman confirmed Thursday that he found an unidentifiable beige food item that he froze, like, six months ago. “I think it might be some kind of gravy or something,” said Freeman, who speculated that the color and uniformity of the mass could mean it was leftover broth from Thanksgiving or Christmas, or maybe a stew he made on New Year’s Eve. “I don’t remember actually freezing any soup, it’s not solid enough to be dough though. Maybe something else leaked and froze around the outside? It doesn’t smell like anything except freezer. Oh well, I should still probably hold onto it so it doesn’t go to waste.” 

I get this a lot. Helen and John have owned up to it as well. I think that the last mystery carton turned out to be some wort of aubergine and beef pasta sauce.

To begin at the beginning

Mia has bagged a couple of tickets for Under Milk Wood at the National for June 17th which is the same day I'm also at Epic Iran in the V&A. Birthday celebrations kick off five days early in 2021 it seems.

High on the Hog

Food, community, culture, resiliency. Based on Jessica B. Harris’ award-winning book, High On The Hog traces the moving story of a people's survival and triumph via the food that has knit generations together and helped define the American kitchen. From Gumbo to fried chicken, our culinary journey stretches from Africa to enslavement, to the Harlem Renaissance, up to our present-day; we celebrate the courage, artistry, and resourcefulness of the African American people. This is not just an African American story; it’s an American story. A feast for all the senses. 

Watch High on The Hog, only on Netflix on May 26: https://www.netflix.com/highonthehog

This has come up as a recommendation and it looks to be right up my street. I think I will watch, at least, the first episode tonight. By a strange coincidence is it exactly two years (Icons passim) that J.J. Johnson put the cooking of the African diaspora on my radar. My my brother John got me a signed copy of his Between Harlem and Heaven cookbook for my birthday that year. Do you see how writing one entry down here every day helps me inhabit my life?

Also series three of the Kominsky Method drops tomorrow. Netflix will be on a bit of a roll here at Browne Acres.

Postcards from the Edge

When we went into lock down in March 2020, my mother had just completed all her pre-op appointments and was due for hip surgery within a week or two. The operation naturally, didn't happen. The ongoing delay has had a big impact on her mobility and pain level. She is on all the pain relief that includes top up morphine.

She had a letter last week regarding surgery There were three options: 

• Cancel completely
• Defer at the moment
• Have surgery as soon as possible

Ideally we would press ahead, but the situation in the hospital is still very restricted, Mum would have to attend all pre-op appointments alone, she would not be able to receive any visitors while in hospital, she would be isolated between appointments, and also after surgery, back in the Ty Enfys Care Home, she and would not be able to have visitors, as that is restricted to the day room only.

Reluctantly after talking it over with her, we have deferred.

Multiply this by millions across a whole range of patients and conditions. The Health Service is going to be hit by a tsunami of pent up demand.

The type of thing I have to worry about

Opera North

Unfortunately Vimeo’s terms of service dictate that you cannot use Vimeo to host or serve your content if you are taking payment through a 3rd party service to grant access.

This was confirmed in no uncertain terms when we spoke to the team at Vimeo (this functionality is only available on their Enterprise and OTT plans which were going to cost the Opera North team far more than they had budgeted for).

Similarly YouTube’s terms explicitly state that you cannot use YouTube to host content to access via a paywall.

Hmmmmm. Cog Design's thoughts are perhaps more nuanced though generally in agreement with Opera N. It also does seem to offer some thoughts on going forward with Spektrix.

more dined against than dining

 You will be pleased to know that the Garrick Club has reopened. 

The Garrick Club is instituted for the general patronage of drama; for the purpose of combining the use of a Club, on economic principles, with the advantages of a literary society; for bringing together supporters of drama; and for the formation of a theatrical library, with works on costume.

The Garrick Club is situated in the heart of London’s West End and Theatreland, in Old Covent Garden.

The regular meetings of the dining club for dramatists inaugurated by Arthur Wing Pinero, will resume soon. Almost everyone you have never heard of is going. (Remember the old joke about a Hollywood starlet so dumb she slept with the writer.)

The things I learn from PG of a Sunday, eh?

We have all the time in the world

I was back to hot yoga for the first time in 2021 yesterday.

It is more than three years (Icons passim) since Shona the instructor reduced me to tears of laughter by solemnly invoking lyrics from Let's get it on by Marvin Gaye into the new age dialogue that accompanies the session.

This Saturday I got her to the same thing with All the Time in the World by Louis Armstrong. Again it was comedy gold. |The morning's class was, to all intents and purposes, a twelve inch, white label remix of 'All the time in the world." Exceeding even my expectations.

You can't get there from here

Social unrest where I live now

Hundreds of residents have encouraged a yarn group to "crack on with their colourful displays" after they received an anonymous letter asking them to be removed from the streets of Merton.

Penny Bettel, of Spin us a yarn, has been filling Colliers Wood with her bright crochet art since November 2020.

Social unrest where I used to live

Gangs of "yobs" have been setting fire to cars and rolling them down a hill in Swansea in "disturbing" footage circulating on social media.

South Wales Police said they attended "large scale disorder" in the Mayhill area of the city on Thursday evening.

Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram

I went round to Helen and Mat's last night to watch Sisters with Transistors (Icons passim).

The American and French women in it (notable exception Suzanne Ciani) tended to the dull, pretentious and portentous. "Boston was F# and New York was E," my arse.

Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram, though were absolutely wonderful. Brisk and no nonsense; they made me proud to be British.

I must watch Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes on the BBC iPlayer.

In 1966, she recorded a demo with Anthony Newley entitled Moogies Bloogies, although as Newley moved to the United States, the song was never released. In the age of YouTube however that need not impede us. "David Bowie is the love child of Delia Derbyshire and Anthony Newley." Discuss.

The Vegas Realist

The screen rights to PG's The York Realist have been sold. Here are some provisional scenario notes in case it has to be tweaked for a U.S. setting.

George, a blackjack dealer living in a motel  with his mother, gets involved with John, who has come from Broadway to work as assistant director on “All I Have,” a Jennifer Lopez concert residency at a Vegas hotel casino.

George’s card tricks become an integral part of the show’s triumphant finale.  ‘Stigmata:’ a scene in which Jennifer, using live ammunition, shoots all four aces out of the air with a Colt 45 as the nerveless George juggles the entire deck of cards.

But when George and John are kidnapped - by renegade remnants of the Qanon rebels who stormed the White House – Jennifer, George’s mother and Doreen (the hat check girl from next door)  must put their differences aside to rescue the boys ……..

(Ollie’s brother Simon directed this Jason Bourne Vegas chase scene. We should be able to get him to storyboard and shoot the denouement.)

In the sequel VRII: Realer Las Vegas! the tables are turned as George and John must break (the framed) Jen, Mum and our Doreen out of America’s most secure women’s prison. All they know is show business schlock and close quarter magic but they assemble a crack team of retired variety performers and the show is on!

Four-square on the Northern Line

The event may not be until next year but our fist post-lockdown theatre booking has been made.

Paapa in Caryl Churchill's 'A Number' at the Old Vic 27 January 2022. 

Six degrees of separation with Rhys Ifans, Bethany and the Theatrical Dynasty as well (Icons passim).

The Arab-Israeli Cookbook

 Grauniard

BIDEN EXPRESSES SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL-GAZA CEASEFIRE AS PRESSURE ON US RISES

President stops short of demanding a halt to hostilities amid calls from his own party to take a tougher line as the death toll in Gaza mounts

Joe Biden has issued a statement for the first time expressing support for a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza’s militant rulers Hamas, after a phone conversation with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

However, the US president stopped short of calling for an immediate halt to the eight days of Israeli airstrikes and Hamas rocket barrages that have killed more than 200 people, the vast majority of them Palestinian.

“The president reiterated his firm support for Israel’s right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks,” the White House statement said after the phone call, the second known one between the leaders in three days.

If Donald Trump was still the President the media would be telling us this conflict was his fault. Imagine the reaction if the Donald's White House had announced that "The president reiterated his firm support for Israel’s right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks."

How come Biden, like Obama before him, gets such an easy ride? More and more I think that if I was a Yank I would tend to vote for Republican presidents on the grounds that they get scrutinised rather than indulged.

As for what is actually going on, see Icons passim.

psychogeography

Think it’s safe to say this Summers BBQ bible has arrived. The incredible ‘Chasing Smoke’ from two of our most favourite people @Honeyandco

Do yourself a kindness and grab a copy. And huge congratulations to Sarit and Itamar as it’s already no1 on Amazon in the bbq section! pic.twitter.com/Z3FZBueBhb

— Hang Fire® (@hangfirebbq) May 15, 2021

When I stumbled on the tweet from the Hang Fire girls above yesterday the name Honey & Co seemed familiar. Sure enough, the WBI time machine tells me that Emma and Miranda took us there in early 2014 as a thank you for our work on the Palace project (see Icons passim).

Another entry in the blog (see Icons passim) reminds me that I first met Hang Fire's Shauna when I went to the Penylan Pantry in 2015 with Mum, Dad, John, Mia and Jasmine.

There is a new neural connection in my brain connecting the two venues and the two occasions and life is all the richer for it.

John Wayne? I was like be "Quiet Man!"

 

I am back in London from Cardiff. This is pretty much how I recall the conversation at the Mackintosh Club on Friday.

Two Shakespearean Actors

Richard Nelson wrote a play inspired by the Astor Place Riot. The RSC did it in 1990. I can't find a domestic review. Here is one from the New York Times about a US run of what I take to be the same production.

The Astor Place Riot

Wikipedia

The Astor Place Riot occurred on May 10, 1849, at the now-demolished Astor Opera House[1] in Manhattan and left between 22 and 31 rioters dead, and more than 120 people injured.[2] It was the deadliest to that date of a number of civic disturbances in Manhattan, which generally pitted immigrants and nativists against each other, or together against the wealthy who controlled the city's police and the state militia.

The riot resulted in the largest number of civilian casualties due to military action in the United States since the American Revolutionary War, and led to increased police militarization (for example, riot control training and larger, heavier batons).[3] Its ostensible genesis was a dispute between Edwin Forrest, one of the best-known American actors of that time, and William Charles Macready, a similarly notable English actor, which largely revolved around which of them was better than the other at acting the major roles of Shakespeare.

This must I have been a time when people really cared about acting. I must tell Peter, Mia and Bethany; our own theatrical dynasty,

Speaking truth to power

'Is Nothing Sacred?' David Cameron Grilled By MPs Over Greensill Lobbying

.......  it was McDonagh who turned up the heat. 

The Mitcham and Morden MP reminded Cameron of his own promised crackdown on lobbying, when he said the industry smacked of “cronyism” and had “tainted our politics for far too long”. 

She said to him: “Do you understand the irony of having used them given many of us believe that the quote depicts your own behaviour with Greensill?” 

Cameron, who signed off a number of his texts to former colleagues with the words “love DC”, said his government had brought in “two important changes” via the lobbying act, which forced multi-client lobbyists to register clients and ministers to report all meetings. 

But McDonagh was quick to cut him off, saying: “I’m ever so sorry but this is a meeting to ask you questions, rather than allow you to talk for the next two hours. 

“You had the enormous privilege of being the prime minister of our great country. You’re one of only five people post-war to have been re-elected to lead our government. 

“Do you not feel you have demeaned yourself and your position by ‘WhatsApping’ your way around Whitehall on the back of a fraudulent enterprise based on selling bonds of high-risk debt to unsuspecting investors?” 

You go girl! After the signal honour of chatting to me in the Co-op, our local MP's grilling of 'Call Me Dave' as part of the Treasury Committee must feel like an anticlimax. 

Dr Strabismus Rides Again

Dr. Strabismus (whom God Preserve) of Utrecht hasn't appeared on these spindrift pages since 2019.

Bugatti reveals the world's most expensive pool table: £217,000 'self-levelling' table will allow superyacht owners to play while at sea.

Back with a vengeance.

The table uses a gyroscopic sensor to level the playing surface and adjust for movements on sea. 

Bugatti said: 'Each leg can move to compensate for the movement of a ship and remain perfectly level. 

'The system can adjust in just five milliseconds, and the movement is completed in total silence with vibration-free adjustment.'