On Fire in Perth: Iris Dement July 23rd 2011

1:36 AM | Labels:



Most of the music you hear on the radio today is developed for making money. It doesn't feel true or honest. You can feel it in the music. - Iris DeMent


An idle google search two or three weeks ago was the first I had heard that Iris Dement was making one of her rare trips to Europe, on this occasion to Perth in Scotland. I had never had the chance to see her on stage before, and despite the long distance I knew I had to go

Normally when I tell people I like Iris Dement they say "Iris who?", so I was very surprised that my neighbours had not only heard of her, but were keen to accompany me.

So, early in the morning, the awful events in Norway from where I had returned a few days before still playing on my mind, the three of us set off on the 260 mile journey across the beautiful countryside in northern England and the Scottish borders to arrive in time for the afternoon concert.

We were not disappointed. After what seemed a rather diffident start, almost hiding behind the piano on what she pointed out was a sloping stage, Iris seemed to gain confidence and composure, took up her guitar, came to the front of the stage and sang as only she can, her songs interspersed with amusing comments about her family and her life. The audience loved her and was reluctant to let her leave.

It lifted me in a way I had not expected, and I wondered how my wife, unavoidably absent in Norway, who finds Iris "too depressing", would have felt had she been there, as she loyally informed me she would have been had she been at home!

The concert included Iris's emblematic, "Our Town" and the first song I had heard her sing on the radio a long time ago, "Let The Mystery Be", here shown in a recording made some years ago:





Apparently Iris originally thought that this was, by her standards at least, a happy song, until a number of people told her that they would like to have it played at their funeral.

I appreciate that Iris Dement is an acquired taste, and I have tried to analyse why I respond to her in the way I do. Firstly I note the influence she ascribes to Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, two of the all time greats that are among my favourites. I also understand and very much relate to the deep and enduring influence of her now rejected evangelical Christian childood, which has been a part of my own life's experience.

But the words that immediately spring to mind are vulnerability, intensity and honesty. I imagine that she is not one of those people who have to be the centre of attention. When she sings she bares a little of herself, but remains a very private person. She is not I think a natural performer, and to my mind all the better for that. I realise now that when she refused to go on stage in March 2003 she was not primarily making a political point about the Iraq war, she was simply so upset that she felt unable to perform. Splitting hairs perhaps, but a truly political performer would have taken to the stage and used the occasion to her advantage.

Maybe I spent more time dwelling on emotions than some people, and maybe that's why I ended up writing. - Iris Dement

This selection of quotations attributed to her somehow confirmed the impression I had formed from listening to her music.

I hope she soon returns to the United Kingdom or, "Haste ye back" as the Scots might say.

Postscript

Iris Dement obviously sent me to bed happy. Soundly asleep in my hotel, I was awakened at 1.00 a.m. by voices outside my room and a knock on the door. I soon realised that my pyjamas were wet, and further inspection revealed a large very wet patch on the unused side of the double bed and water dripping down from the ceiling in a number of places. Apparently there had been a fire in the room above, the alarm had gone off at 12.20, the firemen had put the fire out, and I had slept through it all! I wonder how I would have reacted had I been sleeping on the other side of the bed!

A memorable first visit to the fine city of Perth in every way.








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Norway: Oslo and Utoeya (Utøya) Island, July 22nd 2011

1:25 PM | Labels: ,



The Scream (1893)

Edvard Munch, Norwegian Symbolist Painter (1863 – 1944)

Sometimes words seem inadequate





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"I call my cancer Rupert"

1:01 PM |



"The Dirty Digger"
Rupert Murdoch (Media Mogul, born Australia 1931)


As a writer you will know that one of the favourite fantasy plots is where a character's told you've got three months to live, and who would you kill? I call my cancer Rupert. Because that man Murdoch is the one who, if I had the time (I've got too much writing to do)... I would shoot the bugger if I could. - Dennis Potter, 1994

As the events surrounding the hacking scandal at the News of the World, News International and Rupert Murdoch have unfolded in the past week, I have thought often about that last painful interview that playwright Dennis Potter gave to Melvyn Bragg shortly before his death in 1994.

In it Potter spoke passionately about Murdoch's responsibility for the pollution of the British press and political life.



Just exactly what Potter was warning us of has now become clear, perhaps even to our politicians who have cravenly allowed an American citizen who pays no UK taxes to become the most powerful person in the land.

Throughout the Blair years there were regular, usually secret meetings between Prime Minister and Media Mogul.

In 2003, when Tony Blair was agonising over the decision to take the UK into a war in Iraq, without a UN reolution, and against the wishes of the majority of the UK population, he spoke on the phone to Murdoch three times in the ten days before the invasion. Murdoch's news organisation, and particularly Fox News in the US, was of course the major cheerleader for the Iraq invasion.

If anything the Murdoch Cameron relationship has been even closer, based on social relationships, particularly with Rebekah Brooks, former Editor of the News of the World, and the appointment of her predecessor, the now disgraced Andy Coulson, as Cameron's communications director. Their efforts were crowned by the announcement in 2009 that after 12 years of supporting Labour, the Sun was switching allegiance.

In 2010 when David Cameron was elected Prime MInister lo and behold one of his first visitors at No 10 Downing Street was Rupert Murdoch, admitted through the back door, away from the public gaze. What did they talk about one wonders?

For a long time one doubted if it would ever be possible to elect a Prime Minister who did not meet Mr Murdoch's approval. The events of the past week now give some hope that his power at last is on the wane.

Congratulations to the Guardian who over the years has made most of the running on this story. C.P. Scott would I think be proud of it. The photo and caption at the top comes from the Financial Times.

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Sri Lanka's Killing Fields

3:35 PM | Labels:




A young Tamil woman appealing to the UN not to leave as the Sri Lankan army approaches.


In the last twenty four hours I have watched Channel 4's disturbing documentary Sri Lanka's Killing Fields, on the bloody ending of the civil war in which tens of thousands of civilians were killed, and hospitals were apparently deliberately targeted by the Sri Lankan army. It has made me realise how trivial are most of the things about which I normally write blogs.

I have visited Sri Lanka many times on business and as a tourist, and witnessed the suffering of many of its people in the aftermath of the Tsunami, but this is on a scale beyond my imagining. Civil Wars are always bloody affairs, but one might have hoped that the Buddhist majority in Sri Lanka would behave rather differently to those whose religions have a more bellicose tradition.

My wife has for some time indicated that she would like to make another perhaps final visit to this beautiful, sad country, but this film has confirmed my extreme reluctance to do so. It simply does not seem to me to be an appropriate place to take a holiday.

For the sake of Sri Lanka's reputation these war crimes need proper investigation, and those responsible brought to justice.





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Lord High Admiral

1:04 PM | Labels:


A neighbour, only slightly younger than the Duke of Edinburgh, and a firm supporter of the monarchy on the rational basis that the alternatives look worse, was very surprised when I told him of the Duke's appointment as Lord High Admiral. We both agreed that to make a 90 year old the head of a once great navy in which there are presently more Admirals than ships smacks of "Ruritania", and seems particularly inappropriate at a time when the monarchy is trying to create a more modern image, with a Royal Prince and presumably future King, marrying a commoner and working as a helicopter pilot.

I think I would struggle to explain the appointment to my grandsons.

Some lines from Gilbert & Sullivan spring to mind:

.. now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navy

Now, landsmen all, whoever you may be
If you want to rise to the top of the tree
If your soul isn't fettered to an office stool
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule
Stick close to your desks and never go to sea
And you all may be Rulers of the Queen's Navy
Stick close to your desks and never go to sea
And you all may be Rulers of the Queen's Navy

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Norway: May 17th 2011

8:22 AM | Labels:




Norway is a neighbouring country with which the inhabitants of the western part of the British Isles have been entangled since Viking times, but about which they know little.

Rich in oil and gas, with one of the highest standards of living in the world, increasingly multi-ethnic, a transformation which is bringing its own strains, it has long outgrown its roots as a country of simple farmers and fishermen, and its buoyant service orientated economy now offers employment to many Swedes, who were formerly the dominant people of Scandinavia.

Although I feel, probably mistakenly, that I know the country well, this was my first experience of Constitution Day.


I had expected the procession of brass bands, school children and traditional regional costumes, but I was surprised by the large number of spectators wearing suits and ties.



I cannot conceive of any national celebration in the UK in which people would turn out on the streets wearing what used to be known in my youth as "Sunday best."

So what's this May 17th all about?

In 1814 Norway was ceded to the Swedish crown by Denmark, which had been on the losing side in the Napoleonic wars. In an effort to avoid the loss of Norway, the Crown Prince of Denmark-Norway, Christian Frederik, the resident viceroy in Norway, called a national assembly. This assembly produced a constitution, a very liberal document for its time, which was signed on 17th May 1814.

The constitution eschewed the republicanism of the United States and created a constitutional monarchy, with Christian Frederik as the first King. The lack of international backing, particularly from Great Britain, sealed Norway's fate, and after a very short military campaign it bowed to the inevitable: Christian Frederik abdicated, and the Storting unanimously elected Charles XIII of Sweden as King Charles II of Norway.

With minor amendment only the constitution remained in place after the acceptance of the Swedish King, and so it remained after the attainment of full independence in 1905, accomplished by the deposition of the Swedish monarchy and the election of a new King and Queen, Haakon VII, formerly Prince Carl of Denmark and Iceland, and his wife, formerly Princess Maud of Wales, grand daughter of Queen Victoria, cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm and sister of King George V. It is then the oldest single document constitution in Europe, second only to that of the United States in the world as a whole. I can understand why, in a fast changing and often bewildering world, it means so much to Norwegians.

For anyone interested The Foreigner , an English language web site for non-Norwegians living in Norway, provides an interesting perspective on the country, and an excellent account of the historical background and meaning of the 17th May celebrations.

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That Wedding: Britain at its battiest

1:36 PM | Labels:




As a non royalist, and one of the majority of the people in the UK who neither watched the Royal Wedding on television nor attended a street party, I was interested to read an account of the event in Britain's best newspaper.

Dominating the front page was a rather mocking article by Matthew Engel:

Royal theatre captivates the world
and, in smaller type,

Sealed with a kiss A near perfect day as globe tunes in to see Britain at its battiest - and best.

"On one level, the event was absurd: yet another wedding in a family whose marital failure rate has lately been much worse than the national average. But it was also a demonstration of what Britain - and only Britain - can do. Only these royals can turn a domestic rite of passage into a piece of global theatre."

and
"The service was rather more God-centred than is now generally the case at British weddings, and at an hour and a bit, a touch long for modern tastes, especially for the early birds inside the abbey, some of whom had been there for nearly three hours before the ceremony began."

and, after the ceremony,
"Then half-a-dozen planes flew overhead ("That's the whole RAF," said someone). "

and speaking of the crowds who thronged the route to Westminster Abbey:
"They might just as easily have been here to celebrate a sporting triumph or protest against the Government. But though the British are a touch short of bread, they have been granted a most glittering performance by the glorious and long-running circus that is royalty."

In the middle of the same newspaper Simon Schama put the event in historical context: after the first world war and the fall of the Berlin and Petrograd autocracies, their relatives in London, newly renamed as the thoroughly English "House of Windsor", reinvented themselves and embraced the new world of mass entertainment. Royal celebrations became far grander than before, and "Royal Weddings, unseen in Westminster since the 14th century, became a feature of the calendar." So the young Prince and his bride never had any chance of the small wedding in an Oxfordshire village which was apparently their first choice.

Finally on the back page of the newspaper the Lex Column provided a wonderful tongue in cheek article extolling the business acumen of the mother of the bride: a descendant of labourers, messengers and clerks, she got her foot on the first rung of the ladder of business success by marrying into the minor gentry; she then invested heavily in public school fees (Marlborough) and a flat in Chelsea, sent her daugher to the same University as the Royal Prince, and even sent her beforehand to Chile, which the Prince himself had visited a few months earlier, "to give them something to talk about".

The article concludes, "This is a union of souls made possible by textbook planning: spotting an opening, then pursuing it with resourcefulness and determination. It belongs in the McKinsey Quarterly as much as in the pages of Debrett's."

The family internet business has not surprisingly flourished in the wake of its Royal connections. So, whatever the future holds for the House of Windsor, that of the House of Middleton looks assured.

And what is Britain's best newspaper? The Guardian perhaps, with its tradition of nonconformity and anti-establishment liberalism? The Independent, whose stance on major issues so often chimes with its title? Whilst these are indeed fine newspapers, the one of which I speak is none other than the Financial Times. I found it interesting also that Bagehot, writing in that other bastion of free market orthodoxy, The Economist, declares himself a compassionate republican, and thinks it is time to set the Royal Family free .

Anyway, all the best to the happy couple in the strange lives on which they are embarked.

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