Fat Boy Slim and the Blue Horizon

This isn't really much of a post, relying as heavily as it does on the reflected glory of one much more talented than me.

Why bother then? Well, as it happens I was moved to post this beautifully written song after reading today's entry by Janet Weight-Reed who blogs here too - rather more frequently and interestingly than I can usually manage - musing on the imminent departure of a dear American friend of hers. Still, I possess the "calm confidence of a christian with four aces", as Mark Twain is attributed with saying, that my blogging will come right one day...and indeed, some days I think that it nudges near.

So, I should receive no praise whatsoever for merely knowing that there exists a song about South Dakota, from where Ms J W-R's pal hails as she tells us, even though this one is NOT from the film "Calamity Jane". I shouldn't receive praise but, at this non-self effacing juncture in my life, I'll take what I can get.

The source of glory here is Nanci Griffith and this song drips with the ennui of any number of middle-of-nowhere bars I've frequented on wasted, sunny afternoons when dust raised by the flapping of old newspapers scintillates in the shafts of light and induces, supports and fortifies one's temporarily louche disposition.

No wassname doodahed Nanci, just thingy and I'll oojah.

Well, OK, I don't know for absolutely certain that dinosaurs were blue, but since no human ever saw one stride the earth, it follows that we can't know what exact colour they were. So, until categorically proved otherwise by the relentless march of science, I shall maintain that they are as likely to have been blue as any other colour. Not a navy, airforce or sky blue; not an electric, Egyptian or Persian blue, but something akin to cerulean...more properly called dinosaur blue of course.

Definitely NOT purple like that execrably twee American Kid's TV offering.

I was led to this thought by listening, accidentally, to a Robin Ince podcast I'd downloaded to my laptop some time ago. It was called "Show and Tell" and Robin's guests included Chris Addison - an intelligent and thoughtful comedian, probably best known for his role in the political satire "The Thick of It".

Chris Addison talked about enjoying visits to the Horniman Museum in Dulwich, East London and which, by the way, sounds fantastically eclectic and interesting. Anyway, he was drawn to their specimen of a Canadian walrus. At the time of it's inclusion in the museum's collection in the 1880's the natural shape of walruses was not at all familiar to Victorian taxidermists. As a result, who ever did the stuffing of this naturally wrinkly creature carried on past the wrinkly stage to produce a smooth skinned, markedly over full specimen.

Here's my point. Most things in life are built on supposition, much as we like to think that they are certain, proven, inarguable. It is mostly a guess, circumstantial happenstance, nothing more. Was fire "discovered" as the result of a lightening strike? Does the presence of water on other planetary bodies give evidence of life? Was Jesus really the son of God or was he a chancer who got lucky? Were Beethoven and John Lennon both really geniuses? Did Gaia exist? Did our parents really love each other? What is love anyway?

None of these questions is designed to offend, just to cause a moment's pause for thought. We skate on the thin ice of our own lives. Our only decisions are - do I stay at the edge of the frozen pond, strike out for the middle or try a bit of both? When making such decisions it is important to remember that when the railways came there was a genuine concern that, should the speed exceed 30 mph the human frame would burst through it's skin upon braking.

What can I learn from those who came before? What is truth and what is aspiration? History is written by the victors/survivors (same thing). "It is believed..." does not make immutable truth. The stegosaurus had beautiful, violet eyes...possibly.

I was running late.

I'm not religious.

I am spiritual.

Spuds and mussels are involved, but only peripherally. Oh, and a trawler in a garden.

Don't let your heart sink too much - these statements are connected.

As drives to work go I am one of the lucky ones. The road that I take (written as if I had a choice!) skirts the edge of a sea lough. I go through a tiny Irish town that I will not name (Hello Maguire's Bar, Hello Brennan's bread delivery man!) and wend past mussel beds (seen at low tide only), serious fishing boats pulling at their leads and on to a dormitory town (as if such a thing were necessary) for Derry City. There's the Gaelic Football field, the man selling potatoes from a little van on bricks at the front of his house and the retired fisherman who has had a one third size model of his old trawler built and plopped right there on to his front lawn.

Tractors, those who are village hopping in questionably roadworthy Mazdas and a lugubrious school bus dictate my progress.

Eventually, inevitably, I reach the bridge "on the northern side". Built from steel plate in the same Belfast shipyard that famously forged the RMS Titanic (and many more successful ships), she is known locally as "the new bridge" despite being now more that twenty years old. She curves langorously across Lough Foyle and in that curve lies her glory, taking on the colours of the day. By turn - pinks or greys or some blues yet to show up in any Windsor & Newton tube.

So, I was driving to work and I was late. I'm sure you are familiar with the scene - everything timed to perfection, from the alarm clock sounding to the amount of time that you allocate to choosing to ignore it. On to the time that the kettle takes to boil and the shower to run hot and the thousand unthinking actions one takes before getting in to the car and embarking on an oft repeated journey undertaken in a fug of "I wish that I didn't have to work" or "I wish that my pleasure was my work" or "When I retire...".

I was running late. My routine had been upset and I felt as though I was up against the clock. Automatically BBC Radio Four sounded from the the radio once I started the car. Odd this, because months ago I stopped listening to the radio and started using CDs because the news had become so relentlessy depressing.

I drove past the spud seller, past the boats and mussel creels and saw the greenkeeper for a local golf course striding purposefully to work as he usually does. It has become my habit to pick this man up if I see him (I don't know his name nor he mine) and then drop him off at his work. It costs me nothing, it hopefully helps him out and I get a little company - albeit that conversation is limited to the weather and how it affects grass - as we make our way along the sea lapping by the lough.

After the golf course and the alighting of my temporary companion I turned to the radio once more. "Thought For The Day" was on. I'm not religious but I was struck by what the speaker (Canon Lucy Winkett of St Paul's) had to say.

I have no intention of transcribing Canon Lucy's thoughts, but would like to share with you how moved I was by what she said. I won't as a result become a Christian, but she did connect deeply with that part of me that is spiritual. As I said at the start, I am spiritual.

At a rich man's funeral, she recounted, one mourner said to another "How much do you think he left?". A fellow mourner replied significantly "Everything".

Her theme was that "worth does not equal wealth". I think it was one of the truest meditations on the human condition that I've heard. A thought not just for the day, but for much longer. Here is the whole thing (only three minutes of your life) so that you can make up your own mind:

I'm aware that my reports from the cultural front line that is Edinburgh in August fizzled out to no satisfactory conclusion.

Belatedly then, my final thoughts on this year's panoply of...of...of mixed quality will follow now:

Richard Herring - Hitler Moustache
Mr Herring is now a Fringe veteran. Funny to think then that I saw him when he was a callow youth in a basement venue one Sunday lunchtime and "was up" with a review from Oxford University. A fellow player in those days was the now rather better known Al Murray whose act consisted of a series of accurate but dull and tedious (and slightly worrying - how did he learn?) vocal imitations of "firearms of the world". And now, the AK47!
Anyway "Hitler Moustache" started as an exercise in experiencing life wearing said moustache but ended up as a show about claiming back the toothbrush "upper lip welcome mat" for comedy - after all, he argued, Charlie Chaplin had it first. The show included a non-jokey section as the comic expanded on the BNP's two seats in the European Parliament and how it was the apathy of those who did not vote, perhaps disenchanted with national politics, who handed it to them on a plate.
Thoughtful, funny stuff. Not as funny as he thinks he is, but a quality turn nonetheless.

Bridget Christie - My Daily Mail Hell
Bridget is actually Stewart Lee's wife. It isn't important if this reference means little to you. Her show was not, as many expected, an attack on her ex-employer where she had worked as the administrative assistant in the gossip column department. She shared juicy anectdotes about David (or was it Jonathan?) Dimbleby, Alison Pearson, Gene Wilder and a longer, very interesting one about the artist Jack Vettriano, among others.
In summary, it was a feel good hour in the company of an engaging woman who (she says) left school at 14 armed only with a strong westcountry accent and a dream of becoming an actress. Warm and witty.

Richard Herring and Andrew Collins - The Collings and Herrin Podcast
Yes, him again. This was a cheap, pre-lunchtime show in which these two friends recorded their popular podcast in front of a live audience. It was puerile, juvenile, coarse and unrehearsed. Some things worked and others didn't. I really enjoyed it. Whilst not courageous, they went out on a limb and it was good to watch them bouncing off of each other.

The Electric Cabaret
Sadly, my last show of the Fringe, and it left a nasty taste. I bought the tickets at the half-price booth and they still managed to diddle me! It started late and in a venue (a hotel) that ran out of beer, and was performed to an audience of mostly Southampton Uni students by...er Southampton Uni students. This was appallingly self congratulatory and nerdy. If you're that interested, please read my review at edfringe.com. I felt ripped off and we left after about ten minutes - we weren't alone in this.

First Class
A French company performed this two hander set in a post office. It was an avantgarde musical dance piece and had bags of brio. Something out of the ordinary.

Gavin Webster's Falderal
I thought initially that he had got his show's name wrong - surely its FOLDEROL? Well, as it turns out falderal is an acceptable variant and therefore perfectly OK. This was a late evening stand up act at that "fair on comedians" venue, The Stand. When I got in and found myself sat next to Jo Caulfield I thought I might be in for a fun hour - she wouldn't bother watching tripe would she? Sadly, this articulate (but not as clever as he thinks he is) Geordie only had twenty minutes of top notch material. He started strongly but gradually his star dimmed as it traversed the sixty minutes. Jo laughed like a drain at everything, but perhaps that's what one has to do when watching a fellow comic.

Knuckleball
A slightly preposterous story line did nothing to dull the intensity of the two young American actors who played out this steamy and eventually brutal play. So good were they that I genuinely feared for the wellbeing of the female actor at one point. I went along prepared to barely tolerate this play and emerged stunned.

I also saw some other shows, some free stuff and other bits and bobs, but this essentially marks the end of my Fringe reports for 2009.

Tips? You want tips?
1. Pre-book a few "bankers" before you go. The programme is available from mid-June and it means you'll see something that you like, guaranteed.

2. Go in the second week (it is a three or so week event). This way the shows will have mostly bedded in, Fringe fever won't have visited the performers yet (they often go down with the lurgy and have to deliver their final shows through rasping voices and Lemsips) and you'll get in to most things still - "London Weekend" comes at the last weekend and getting tickets then is a different story.

3. Loos - an important consideration. Temporary venues generally mean temporary porta loos. Yeuch! Try those venues which are usually churches or community centres, which are generally well maintained. No need to see a show there - just wander in. NB - This WON'T work in the pubs!

4. Try some "Five Pound Fringe" shows - these are professional shows but not usually household names. Worth a punt, which is what the Fringe should be about.

5. Try some "Free Fringe" shows - the two big players in this are "Laughing Horse" and "PBH". It will usually be a non-ticketed show in a pub's backroom. They are genuinely free although the pub banks on you buying a drink or two and a bucket is passed for the performers at the end - £1-£2 is the usual donation. The companies are often student shows or part time performers. Quality is hugely variable, but hey, it is a venture worth supporting because if you kiss enough frogs...

6. Accomodation - I can't say this to much...do the Fred Pontin thing and book early, book early, book early! The Edinburgh Festival is the single largest tourist attraction in the UK and at the time that it runs, the Military Tattoo is on too. Add to that the normal welter of summer visitors who've come to see one of the most beautiful and tourist friendly cities in Europe if not the world.

7. Diet - forget it! You'll eat junk and like it. Got it?! Actually, calling it all junk is unfair as there is some good low cost take away food out there. You will however eat on the hoof, at odd hours and in odd places. It is part of the whole experience and, after all, you are there for the culture not the cuisine aren't you? (Edinburgh has a plethora of first class restaurants, but they're pricey and full of luvvies at Fringe time, and dinner time is also showtime isn't it?).

So there you have it, in all of its ugly, raw, smelly, uncomfortable, beautiful, kaleidoscopic and life affirming glory. Go.

So, as the satirical magazine Private Eye (recommended as an effective Daily Mail antidote) would have it, farewell then Keith Waterhouse.

I used to be a nurse in another life. I worked on permanent night duty (12 hour shifts, seven in a row) for two years once in the very early 1980's. It was a personally and relationship damaging cul-de-sac as it turns out, but that has no relevance to my tale right now. At the time I was the male equivalent of a "Sister" and I was in charge of four wards, despite my youth. The staff were generally excellent and so, apart from regular (but not so regular as to be predictable!) rounds, unless there were new admissions or patients close to death - yes, dear reader, I'm afraid that people do die despite the best ministrations of hospital staff - I would sit in the various ward offices reviewing notes,treatment plans, drug schedules and the like. By 2 a.m. things had often settled on the wards - those in pain were comfortable, those who couldn't sleep were helped so to do (that's how it was) and those about to go gentle in to that good night had not yet entered their final hour.

It was then that I would read for a while. In Plymouth, where this tale takes place, there was a second hand bookshop that I loved and from there, as was my habit, I randomly picked, a yellowing, musty copy of Keith Waterhouse's first book, "There Is A Happy Land". This was one of those touchstone books for me that we all have in our lives. Ones that we will always remember, sometimes distortedly, sometimes nostalgically as "one of the best books I've ever read". What we actually mean of course is that the book connected directly with us at that point in our lives. Not necessarily because of it's subject matter, but because of some weird alchemy that turned base writing in to gold because we were in a place that made us receptive to it.

"There Is A Happy Land" describes life, from a child's eye view, on a council estate in Leeds in the post war years. The life there is colourful, funny and shocking in it's casual cruelty, but it is equally as warm and life affirming as it is raw and real.

It was the first of the author's books that I ever read and, despite reading several more over the years (although not his most famous - "Billy Liar"), none of the others, though they charmed and amused me, recaptured the un-put-down-ability of that second hand, dog eared tome.

No matter - if he were only to have written one book and that one was "There Is A Happy Land" then that would be enough for me. I look at it on my bookshelf even as I write.

Thank you Keith. You touched my heart and fired my imagination. Better still, you retain that power even from beyond the pale, every time I pull your book down and read the words you wrote, on a clanky typewriter in a land less priviledged than mine, where happiness was still in the rainbow pattern on a roadside puddle.

Another bittersweet song from the underrated Boothby Graffoe. I think that his facility with words and music are masterfully understated. This only gives more weight to what he is saying (pity then, that the audience laughed at the obvious in this otherwise subtley complex song). To be fair, he is a musical comedian and so they may have felt obligated.

The picture, just in case you are curious, is of Wigan Pier, made famous by either George Orwell or George Formby...take your pick.