Flotsam and Jetsam – Page 41 – The Imperceptible Immigrant

Diggers, Ranters and Levellers

April 17, 2014November 17, 2013 by admin

Realize that everything connects to everything else.

Leonardo da Vinci

Proof yet again – if proof were needed – that all things within our consciousness are bound together by a common strand and that even when one is unaware of the fact connections are being made which only become apparent after the event…

To whit…

I wrote a couple of posts some few weeks or so ago on the subject of the chancellor – George Osbourne’s – speech to the Tory party conference – under the banner “The World Turned Upside Down“. I chose this particular appellation largely on the back of the quotation – by Pope Alexander VI to Lucrezia Borgia – that I had used as the strap line for the second of those posts.

The phrase itself is well known but – as is sadly all too often the case – I had not at that point adequately considered its origins. I later felt moved to look it up – as I should have done in the first place.

“The World Turned Upside Down” has its origins as a ballad (of uncertain authorship) which dates from the 1640s. It was penned as a polemic against the puritan parliament’s edict that Christmas should be henceforth be regarded as a solemn religious festival – thus banning the kind of pagan celebrations with which we are now familiar.

The ballad should not be confused with the considerably more modern ditty which bears the same title but which was written in 1975 by Leon Rosselson and later recorded by Billy Bragg. This song is in turn frequently confused with the “Diggers’ Song” (also known as “Levellers and Diggers“) which is another 17th-century ballad, inspired by the Digger movement and composed by Gerrard Winstanley.

Leon Rosselson took the title for his song from the synonymous book by the Marxist historian, Christopher Hill, the subtitle of which is “Radical Ideas During the English Revolution”.

The period of chaos that marked the English Civil Wars – the ‘English Revolution’ – that confrontation between the monarchy (with its belief in the divine right of kings) and parliament (determined to establish democracy – however primitive in form) re-invigorated a radical tradition that had previously been rigorously suppressed whenever heads had been raised above the parapet. A variety of movements – the Diggers, the Levellers, the Ranters, the Quakers (very different in nature to the movement we know today) and the Fifth Monarchists – flourished for a brief but significant period.

“All well and good” – I hear you say – “but what has this to do with connections?”

Well – the period immediately following the civil wars – the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell and the subsequent restoration of the monarchy – is also know as the Golden Age of Piracy. These historical strands are – without doubt – interconnected, there being solid grounds for believing that the rise of piracy was at least partially rooted in English radicalism…

…and it just so happens that I have recently been reading extensively and widely on the subject of piracy – for an embryonic project to which I will no doubt return within these posts before too long.

Altogether now – “Arrrrr!”…

A silly affectation

November 10, 2013 by admin

As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I were to begin it now?

Abraham Lincoln (before he grew such!)

We are now well into Movember – that intriguing charitable appropriation of the penultimate month by those who encourage the effusion of facial fungus in support of mens’ heath issues. This is – of course – an extremely good cause and one which I wholeheartedly support. I understand that the campaign is already well established in Canada and support in the UK and elsewhere grows year on year. At the School boys and staff alike have taken up the challenge – in many cases with inevitably hilarious results.

Good for them!

I am not myself one of those so engaged, but it should be admitted at this point that I am – nonetheless – currently cultivating something of a beard – an undertaking that I have never before so much as attempted. The main reason for not being a party to the charitable effort is that I stopped shaving – as I frequently do – over the recent half term, only deciding as School returned not to re-start. Those properly adopting the challenge are supposed to be clean-shaven on the first of November – which ruled me out since I couldn’t face starting again from scratch.

The other reason for my ambivalence is that I still find myself very much in two minds as to whether or not I really do want to sport such facial growth.

First steps in anything new – as always in this technological age – are to consult the InterWebNet. There I get something of a shock. There is a fair amount of ‘beard’ literature thereabouts, but much of it has about it the sort of evangelical zeal that I find vaguely discomforting. Enthusiasm for the wearing of a beard I can – I suppose – understand. Efforts to stigmatise those who choose not so to do as being somehow less than manly could be conceived as humourous until those attempts become just that little bit too vehement – at which point I start to sense the pungent odour of rodent!

I am not particularly hirsute and three weeks into the experiment progress on my putative brush seems to have slowed to a crawl. Before you smile knowingly and mutter “there you go, then” to yourself, it has to be said that I actually think the growth quite suits me. It makes me look almost distinguished. Further, the Kickass Canada Girl – having previous form in the field of beard appreciation – has given the nod of approval.

The thing is – though – that I’m not sure that I either particularly like the feel of wearing the thing, nor – indeed – that I actually like the notion of being bearded. Though I am susceptible to the romantic caprice of the grizzled mariner I’m not sure if that is in reality how I see myself. I simply don’t know whether I like the idea or not.

Well – perhaps I’ll give it a week or so…

So…

October 24, 2013 by admin

I do not believe that I have ever been – or could ever be – a party to a serious relationship with anyone who was not an admirer of the most excellent Mr Peter Gabriel. Those with whom I have shared such accord will undoubtedly testify to my continuing enthusiasm for the man and his works over an extended period.

The Kickass Canada Girl and I – naturally – established early on that we were mutual admirers, the chief difference between us being that whereas I have genuinely lost count of the number of times that I have seen Mr G perform live in the flesh, she had not – to the point at which we met – had that opportunity at all. In common with many other UK artists the Canadian leg of Mr G’s previous world tours had rarely extended further west than Montreal or Toronto. My worry was that – given that none of us is exactly young any more (Mr G being some four years older than I) – opportunities so to do might prove somewhat scarce.

So it was – back in the summer of 2007 – that the Girl and I found ourselves huddled close together under the pouring rain in the grounds of a stately home in Norfolk. We had trekked all the way up there to catch one of a small number of dates that Gabriel was playing as a warm-up to that year’s WOMAD festival, which itself was unfortunately coincidental with our being out of the country on holiday. Mr. G played a fine set of (mostly) older numbers which we enjoyed hugely – if somewhat damply – but I found myself regretting slightly that the Girl was not getting to see the full ‘show’.

We had the chance to see Mr G again in early 2010. This time he was touring in the wake of the release of his album of covers of other performers’ songs – ‘Scratch my Back’ – with a full orchestra instead of his usual band. Once again a splendid evening was had by all – but it still wasn’t quite the live PG performance by which I had been so captivated on previous occasions.

Finally – this year – came the news that, at the age of 63, Gabriel was touring once more – this time in celebration of the twenty fifth anniversary of the release of his biggest selling album – ‘So’. Gabriel was to be joined on the road by the members of the band that toured the album back in 1986/87 – David Rhodes, David Sancious, the excellent Manu Katché and of course the ever-present Mr Bass, Tony Levin! The show was to climax with ‘So’ performed in its entirety.

The tour reached London this week – sojourning for two nights at the in-feasibly remote ‘O2’ – and the Girl finally got to see what I had observed many times previously. She was suitably blown away!

Who knows how many more tours Mr G has in him? Given his incredible contribution to the arts (as well as to many humanitarian causes) through more than five decades I for one would not blame him for wanting to take life easy from now on. His voice – it must be said – sounds almost better than I have ever heard it, so it may be that he has no thoughts of retiring just yet. We can but hope!

Needless to say – should you ever get the chance to catch him live I most strongly urge you so to do.

Autumnal apprehensions

May 13, 2014October 14, 2013 by admin

Assorted images of the harvest season in Merrie England – as captured by the Fuji X10. The interminable drizzle and ashen skies give little in the way of encouragement to the casual photographer…

Two ton

September 23, 2013 by admin

Time – perhaps – for a slightly muted celebration. ‘Two cheers’, one might say… this being – as it happens – the two hundredth post on this blog.

The one hundredth such was posted a mere day or so less than a year ago which means that I am averaging – even by my rudimentary mathematical calculations – very nearly two posts a week. I am quietly rather proud of this record and certainly would not have expected to have been able to maintain it when I started out some twenty months ago.

It is my hope that some of what I have written will come in useful for those contemplating the move from the UK to Canada – though of course progress on my own project in this regard has (through circumstances beyond our control) been pitiful of late. Hopefully some of my postings on Long Distance Relationships have provided some encouragement to those of you obliged to live in like manner.

Much of what I write originates simply from the things that move me, the things that interest me and even from the things that irritate me. Sometimes my prolixity has been excessive – and for that I beg your indulgence. Mayhap my meanderings on occasion might have appeared aimless – mere frivolities. Well – life seems to me to be made in roughly equal measure of the meaningful and of the meaningless – and it is my whim to celebrate them both the same.

To that end I raise an (ever-present) glass (in need of a top-up, since you ask!) and tak’ a wee dram to make a toast:

Here’s to all those that I love
Here’s to all those that love me.
And here’s to all those that love those that I love,
And all those that love those that love me.

Techno ceilidh and acid croft!

September 18, 2013 by admin

Should the rubric to this post make you start asudden – anxious lest you might all unknowingly have ingested some strange hallucinogenic compound which has set your pulse a-racing, your nerves a-jangling and which leaves you wondering if kaleidoscopically hued chameleons might start suddenly to emanate from the light fittings…

…rest easy – gentle reader – relax!

Maybe even – as the au courant slang would have it – ‘chillax’! (Though I find that particular neologism strangely vexing!).

No matter. Bear with me and I will elucidate…

In the course of my occasional series of posts on the subject of seeking out new musics – both here and in Canada – I have previously waxed lyrical on the subject of Celtic fusion. The background to this particular fascination may be revisited here. That particular post extols the talented Paul Mounsey, whose music fuses the influences of his Scottish roots with those of his Brazilian wife.

A couple of weeks ago the Kickass Canada Girl and I were to be found basking somewhat unexpectedly in the sunshine at Twickenham – where we were attending the double-headed fixture that these days launches the Premiership rugby season in the UK. The first of the two games saw London Irish pitched against the Saracens, and the pre-match atmosphere was stoked to a frenzy in part by the splendidly thunderous ‘Irish’ music that was cranked out over the stadium’s PA. At these levels, and with sufficient clarity, such music really can stir the blood and set the pulse racing – not to mention tugging teasingly at the heart-strings of any true Celt.

I wanted, naturally, to know what tune – and by what band – had been responsible for this thrilling elevation of the spirits. As ever the InterWebNet provided the answer – though not without some considerable efforts on my part. The piece concerned turned out to be an instrumental version of I’m Shipping up to Boston by the splendidly named Dropkick Murphys. Their original version sets to music lyrics by Woody Guthrie and features on the soundtrack to Scorsese’s (frankly disappointing) The Departed. The instrumental is apparently widely used as ‘run-out’ music in sporting circles – which comes as little surprise.

Now – the Dropkick Murphys turn out to be American (from Quincy, Massachusetts) rather than Irish – and that itself turns out to be something of a theme once one starts to look for modern Celtic music. The scene in Canada and North America seems to be every bit as vibrant as does that in the home nations.

Further listening suggests that the Murphys – in reality a Celtic Punk band – are a little rough around the edges for my taste, but I am grateful nonetheless that this aural experience has re-invigorated my quest to boldly seek out new musical life forms (well – new to me, anyway!).

Enter the Haggis! No – really… that’s the name adopted by the next ensemble that I encountered in the course of my musical meanderings. Sure enough, they hail from Canada! Their Celtic tinged rock incorporates a wide range of influences and styles and I particularly like some of the tracks on their last two CDs – Whitelake and The Modest Revolution. Here is a taster:

Year of the Rat: Year of the Rat – Sample

It was not, however, until I followed the trail back to Scotland – to Edinburgh, to be precise – that I found what I was really looking for. Please allow me to introduce to you – the inventors of Techno Ceilidh and of Acid Croft (which latter has been described as ‘a fiery and infectious blend of Celtic traditional music and dance grooves that band members like to call “hypno-folkadelic ambient trad!”) – the one and only – Shooglenifty!

What I like about this particular fusion – apart from the infectious rhythms and evocative melodies – is the sheer breadth of influence that the band draws upon to create their unique and adventurous music.

Look – that’s quite enough chat from me… Do your ears (and feet!) a favour and have a listen to these samples. Crank it up!

McConnell’s Rant: McConnell’s Rant – Sample
The Eccentric: The Eccentric – Sample
Walter Douglas MBE: Walter Douglas MBE – Sample

In my life

September 6, 2013 by admin

Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

In My Life – Lennon/McCartney

I have been racking my brains over the past week or so trying to find an angle from which I might contribute something thoughtful or meaningful to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and – of course – of Martin Luther King’s epochal speech with which that event has become synonymous. Much has been written – over the intervening decades and in the run up to the commemoration itself – concerning both the event and the man, by writers considerably more gifted than I could ever hope to be. It may indeed simply be that all that could be – and possibly even should be – has already been said.

This reflection, however – as such contemplation frequently does – leads me on to other thoughts with which the gentle reader might discern some resonance.

I was only nine in 1963 and have no direct memories at all of the march or of the speech. The only event that year to have left a lasting impression on me – as on so many others – occurred later in the year – that fateful November in Dallas. The true nature and significance of even that momentous happening was lost on me at the time, of course. My mother was an avid Home Service listener and I do recall programmes being punctuated by shocked reports from Texas, though I was – at the time – unable to make much sense of them. When my father returned from work I ran down the garden path to meet him crying “They’ve shot the prime minister”… Of course, I didn’t actually know who that was either (Alec Douglas-Home, as it happens – MacMillan having resigned in October the same year!).

I grew up surrounded by women (bear with me here!). My parents were both only children but each of their mothers came from large families. I stress ‘mothers’ here because – other than my father – I have no memories at all of any of the men in either family. An initial imbalance in favour of the female had been exacerbated by the war and by ill health. Of grandmothers and great aunts I thus had an abundance, all of whom – endowed with the robust family female gene – lived to a ripe old age.

My grandmother on my mother’s side was born in the very early days of the nascent twentieth century, around the same time that Queen Victoria passed away. I recall in my youth being amazed that one lifetime could encompass so many dramatic changes and extraordinary events. She lived through two world wars… She witnessed the arrival of the motor car (as anything other than a plaything for the rich)… She was alive for the birth of flight and thus for the development of air travel… She was born in an age that pre-dated radio and TV. I could go on…

You can probably see where this is going.

At the time I could not imagine what it must be like to have lived long enough to have seen or experienced so many happenings. Maybe I just couldn’t imagine that such a pace of change could be maintained.

Now – of course – the realisation that when the March on Washington took place I was already approaching the start of my second decade on this verdant planet makes me realise just how many such events have actually taken place on my watch – as it were. The moon landings… The fall of the Berlin wall… The end of Apartheid in South Africa… The Good Friday agreement… The financial crash… The advent of the personal computer and of the mobile phone… The birth and extraordinary growth of the InterWebNet… DVDs… CGI… A Briton winning Wimbledon!… and on and on…

What this tells me is that I am already well on my way to achieving a similar status to that which my grandmother enjoyed – that of having lived a bloomin’ long time!

…and of having seen many things…

One for the purists

August 20, 2013August 20, 2013 by admin

It says a good deal as to the frenetic pace at which we have been living of late that Sunday last saw only my second appearance of the season in the whites (as opposed to the garish ‘pyjamas’ of the short-form game) that are still in the main the mark of the village cricketer.

I posted regarding my first outing of the season here. This fixture was played under rather different circumstances, taking place not on some bucolic countryside cricket green but rather in a council run park in one of the suburbs of south London. Nowhere near as pretty and – as is often the way with council squares – the pitch was – shall we say – erratic… to put it mildly. In other words – some balls kept low whilst others would shoot abruptly up to chest or even chin height and very few came on nicely to the bat – making the timing of shots difficult in the extreme.

No matter. A good game was had by all and the opposition – another side new to us – were good sports. The match was thus played in an appropriately Corinthian spirit.

One of the great beauties of cricket is that the game came be played in a wide variety of formats, from the full five day ‘tests’ so beloved of the purists (of which I count myself one) down to the frantic dash of the Twenty20 format, which is done and dusted – razzamatazz and all – in around three hours. Even at village level subtle variations can be agreed upon to enhance the occasion. For this fixture – for example – we had agreed on two additional rules:

every member of each team would be required to bowl at least one over – including the wicket keepers…
once a batsman reached 30 runs he would be obliged to retire, though he could come out again if all of his team’s other wickets had fallen.

These ‘house’ rules were adopted to ensure that all concerned would be as involved in the match as possible, and so that no particularly gifted individuals could hog the limelight.

As a result I got to bowl a couple of overs for the first time in ages and – to my surprise – I actually took a couple of wickets… although the second such – a stumping – came from such a rank bad ball that I felt embarrassed to have my name associated with it. I also hung around for a while with the bat and accumulated what is – for me – a respectable score.

Once I was out – however – we lost several more quick wickets and soon found ourselves at 120 for 8, chasing a target of 183 and with only 7 overs or so left in which to get them. A win looked the least likely outcome at this point. Fortunately – by another of the sort of quirks that features only in this type of game – we had held back a couple of our better batsmen until well down the order, and some judicious hitting out by them saw us home with a few balls to spare in a most exciting finish.

Jolly good stuff all round – and everyone went home happy.

As the title of this post suggests, I have made no attempt herein to elucidate any of the arcana of the game for those with little or no extant knowledge thereof. To make up for this ommission I am very happy so to do – individually – for anyone who might be interested.

I don’t think I will hold my breath though!

Perseids

August 13, 2013 by admin

I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them but they were only satellites
It’s wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish, I wish, I wish you’d care

New England – Billy Bragg

Spent some time outside last night – looking for Perseids…

Saw three shooting stars – and a bat!…

Made a wish (on the stars – not on the bat!)…

Seemed a reasonable night’s work – so I called it a day – (if you see what I mean)…

Got a crick in my neck!…

Random representations from our recent ramblings

May 13, 2014August 8, 2013 by admin

The great beauty of the Fuji X10 is that it is small enough and light enough that it can simply be carried over my shoulder pretty much everywhere I go. It is also at the same time both versatile and yet simple to use. As a result I can quickly fire off shots whenever I see anything that tickles my fancy. The great step forward that digital represents, of course, is that one can execute as many such as one desires – with no cost implications and the ability to rapidly lose any results to which it is just too embarrassing to admit. Goodness knows how we managed in the days of film!

Herewith a few more snaps from our recent travels.

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