Monday, February 10, 2025

The surprisingly complicated history of Highbury and Islington

Jago Hazzard gives a thorough and entertaining history of this long-neglected, but now thriving, London station. I too have stood beside the Famous Cock and found that fragment of the original grand Victorian building.

The North London Railway's City terminus at Broad Street has disappeared into history, but in the early Eighties I was a regular user. 

The London Chess League matches, in which I played for the Richmond and Twickenham club, all took place at the nearby Bishopsgate Institute. When my game was over, I would catch a late train from Broad Street all the way home to Kew Gardens.

In case you don't believe me, here's the indicator board at Richmond in those days.

Anyway, you can support Jago Hazzard's videos via his Patreon page.

The Joy of Six 1323

Hannah Forsyth surveys the history of the commercialisation of higher education and concludes: "Universities need to be democratic in both structure and purpose."

John Cromby complains that left-wing political commentators treat psychiatric diagnoses as uncontroversial: "This has the effect of reifying psychiatric diagnoses – of making them appear more real, more concrete, more legitimate. It also works to undermine critiques: of diagnosis, and of psychiatry more generally."

"G.K. Chesterton once wrote that journalism was, 'saying "Lord Jones Dead" to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive'." A hundred-and-some years later that sounds rather quaint. Today, it’s asking three different sources with a vested interest in the matter whether Lord Jones is in fact dead, and posting their contradictory answers in real-time as you receive them." Martin Robbins argues that Donald Trump - and Robert Peston - have broken the news, and that it's probably time to rethink your information diet.

Many of the oligarchs who supported Hitler ended up in concentration camps, reports Timothy W. Ryback.

David Trotter reviews the new British Film Institute book on Ken Loach's Kes (1969): "Kes marked a conscious departure from the 'go-in-and-grab-it' style of Up the Junction. The aim now was to observe, sympathetically, at a distance, but still with a view to avoiding as far as possible any suspicion of extensive rehearsal."

"In the popular imagination, Birmingham isn’t thought of as an artistic bohemia. The city’s historic stereotype, judging by the backdrop to the likes of Peaky Blinders or the risible Tolkien biopic from 2019, is summed up by no-nonsense men bashing iron in huge factories, often to a heavy metal soundtrack." But there's more to the city than that, says Jon Neale as he looks at the role of the Arts and Crafts movement in its history.

Generate your own Penguin Classics cover

 


It's easy to do and it's here.

Sunday, February 09, 2025

Was Lucy Letby let down? What happens next?

In another of his informative videos, Alan Robertshaw looks at how Lucy Letby's case now stands and at the role of the expert witness more generally.

Endangered frog dads travel 7,000 miles to 'give birth'





 BBC News hops away with out Headline of the Day Award.

Jethro Tull: Pibroch (Cap in Hand)

It's the summer of 1977. England are regaining the Ashes under Mike Brearley, and Songs from the Wood by Jethro Tull is the best album I know or can imagine.

When I play it loudly at night with my bedroom windows open, I can hear a pair of class 20s  on the Market Harborough to Northampton line. They're slogging up the bank to Great Oxendon with a coal train bound for London.

Yes, it was all a long time ago. Over the years I must have featured most of the tracks on Songs from the Wood here, but not this one. At eight and a half minutes, it represents Tull's blend of folk rock straining to become something more pretentious.

And 'Pibroch'?

Pibroch, piobaireachd or ceòl mòr is an art music genre associated primarily with the Scottish Highlands that is characterised by extended compositions with a melodic theme and elaborate formal variations. Strictly meaning 'piping' in Scottish Gaelic, piobaireachd has for some four centuries been music of the great Highland bagpipe.

Saturday, February 08, 2025

The Joy of Six 1322

"Like in all families, there will be differences and even outright conflicts; still, its members feel the bonds of their family resemblance, orienting their ideas and inclinations, both domestically and on the world stage, to a shared ideological purpose." Victor Shammas on the growing club of far-right, hardline nationalist and fascist political leaders that is working hard to transform the world.

"Any assessment of the Reform-Tory battle leads inexorably to the conclusion that Badenoch has not only failed to alleviate her party’s existential predicament - she has deepened it. The Conservative Party’s polling since the July general election tracks on aggregate graphs as a bell curve. The party gained at Labour’s expense during its protracted leadership contest. It peaked as Badenoch assumed the mantle of leader. It has declined since." Josh Self foresees panic in Conservative ranks.

Ana Isabel Nunes writes in praise of legislative theatre: "A form of community-based theatre that gives participants an opportunity to actively explore, analyse and transform their lives through drama and roleplay."

"English cricket has always been a brutal thing, cruel even to its elite players. Mike Brearley’s remark that the Bazball attitude is a reaction to depression is still the most interesting thing anyone has said about it. ... Bazball seems basically to be about being in a group and feeling good. It’s deeply relatable. Don’t you want some of that too?" Barney Ronay on Bazball as a death cult.

Taylor Parkes enjoys The Professionals: "What The Sweeney is to worn-out mid-1970s Britain (tin ashtrays, floral headscarves, bent-faced men in grey slacks and platform shoes kicking each other in the bollocks), so The Professionals is to the very late 70s and very early 80s: huge microwaves, Harrington jackets, Eddie Kidd in a neon nightclub drinking Harp from a glass with a handle."

A London Inheritance visits North Woolwich: "A station, pier, pleasure gardens and causeway."

Friday, February 07, 2025

Layla Moran calls on government to stand up to Trump over Gaza

Interviewed here on The News Agents podcast, Layla Moran calls on the government to take a stand against Donald Trump's plans for the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza. 

She wants Britain to recognise the state of Palestine and to call for an immediate meeting of the United Nations security council.

Her point that Trump respects strength, and certainly won't respect the government's current timidity, is well made.

The last Tsar of Russia gave Sandy Campbell a pair of field glasses

When I was 12 I could recite the Romanov Tsars of Russia in their correct order. My enthusiasm for Russian history was kindled by Robert Massie's book Nicholas and Alexandra and the film that was made of it.

Sadly, that knowledge has long gone. But I was still chuffed to see this photograph and caption in The Sphere:

SANDY CAMPBELL LOOKING OUT FOR DEER ON LOCHNAGAR 

These field-glasses were presented to Mr. Campbell by the Czar when his Imperial Majesty visited Glassalt Shiel

Sandy Campbell, who was the brother of my great great grandmother, now has his own label on this blog.

This is the third of three articles occasioned by that article in The Sphere. The first two were:

The Making of Gone to Earth 1

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger film of Mary Webb's novel Gone to Earth was released in 1950. The Stiperstones shot in Technicolor makes just about the ultimate Shropshire Hills porn.

This behind-the-scenes footage comes from Michael Powell's own collection. We see the starts Jennifer Jones and David Farrar and Powell himself, as well as many locals in and out of period costume.

Malcolm Saville fans should have a look at 3:00, where we see Gypsies. This is what Reuben, Miranda and their van would have looked like.

What strikes me most here is how cumbersome the film equipment looks. It's why you have to assume that every scene in a wartime documentary has been staged - there was little chance of reacting quickly as events unfolded.

The really good news is that this is the first of four of these films from the making of Gone to Earth (or "Tess of the Stiperstones" as I saw someone call it on social media - the story shares Hardy's triangle of innocent peasant girl, wicked squire and sexless man).

I did post these once before. It was 12 years ago, but who's counting?

Thursday, February 06, 2025

Ronald McDonald and the myth of the all-powerful Nimby


The habitués of the Westminster village live in a world where it takes only one Nimby with a petition to stop a housing estate.

A story in today's Guardian may have given them a glimpse of what life is like in the world outside:
McDonald’s has thwarted attempts to stop it opening new outlets by stressing that it sells salad, promotes “healthier lifestyles” and sponsors local children’s football teams.

Public health experts claim the fast-food firm uses a “playbook” of questionable arguments and tough tactics to force local councils in England to approve applications to open branches.

The disclosures, in an investigation published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ), set out how McDonald’s gets its way, especially when it appeals against councils’ decisions to block new openings.

Since 2020 it has lodged 14 such appeals with the Planning Inspectorate. So far it has won 11 of them and lost only one, and there are two others ongoing, the BMJ reported.
You can read the paper on the BMJ website.

Later on the Guardian reports Alice Wiseman, the director of public health in Gateshead, who makes it clear who holds the more powerful position in such planning disputes:
It’s very undermining in the role of local government in being able to shape a healthy environment. We haven’t got the resources that the likes of McDonald’s have got to be able to get into any legal battles with this. It’s David and Goliath."
The idea that the planning laws are holding Britain back from a great leap forward has been popular in right-wing think-tanks for years, and now seems just as popular with people who imagine they are on the left.

In reality, it is a prime example of what Chris Dillow (surely Rutland's most celebrated Marxist economist) has called "Scooby Doo ideology":
This week's remarks suggest that Labour seems to think this slowdown is because capitalism has been restrained by stupid government or by a defective working class. Which is not much different from the Tories blaming the deep state or bureaucratic class.

Both parties seem to have the Scooby Doo theory of capitalism: "I'd have succeeded if it weren't for those meddling kids."

There is, however, an alternative possibility. It's that capitalism itself has developed forces which reduce growth.
And he goes on to give five examples.

I'm not a great one for banning things: in the two planning disputes involving McDonald's that have gained national attention, I've been inclined to support them.

One was their attempt to open a branch in Hampstead, where I reasoned that a burger now and then was just what the pallid, muesli-fed children of the suburb needed. The other was a drive-through on the edge of Oakham, which was said, all by itself, to threaten Rutland's rural character.

Come of it! Rutland is not some bucolic fairyland. (I don't know how people can have formed the impression that it is.) People there want a chance to enjoy fast food as much as anyone else.

But where there are serious public health objections to the opening of a particular restaurant then they should be heard and should have a chance of winning the day.

That they don't have much chance at present shows how wrongheaded the myth of the all-powerful Nimby is.

All Leicestershire's university libraries are now open to everyone


Here's a good news story from the Leicester Mercury:

Universities across Leicestershire are opening up their libraries to everyone in the county. The new scheme means libraries at the University of Leicester, De Montfort University, and Loughborough University will be open to anyone who lives, works, or studies in the area.

Anyone aged 18 and older in Leicester, Leicestershire, or Rutland can sign up to the libraries for free and borrow up to 10 books at a time. The new arrangement is part of the Universities Partnership, a group formed in 2022 involving the three universities and Leicester City Council, Leicestershire County Council, and Rutland County Council.

The report goes on to quote Paul Angrave from the Universities Partnership:

"Universities are fantastic assets to their regions and by opening their library doors to local people, we are not only welcoming them onto our campuses - we are providing a wonderful additional service. The educational resources we are making available will benefit our locality and reflect our collective ambition to inspire and provide additional learning opportunities for local people."

When I first moved back to Leicestershire, there were no turnstiles at the entrance to the library at the University of Leicester, or anything like that. So you could just wander in and read to your heart's content - what you couldn't do was borrow books.

It was in those days that I discovered my favourite misprint there.

While I was taking my part-time MA at Leicester I had membership of the library, and when I completed it I was given a free card. I thought this would be a lifetime perk, but the university brought in a charge not long afterwards. Since then I have paid for a ticket in a couple of years, but for the most part have not bothered.

So well done to the three universities for making their libraries free to all.

Wednesday, February 05, 2025

Palmerston the Foreign Office cat accepts an overseas posting

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Forget Larry: we all know whose territory Downing Street really was. It belonged to Palmerston, the Foreign Office cat.

This afternoon came this exciting news from the BBC:

Palmerston, the former resident cat at the Foreign Office, has been brought out of retirement for a new overseas diplomatic posting nearly 3,500 miles away in Bermuda.

A post on Palmerston's X account, announced the black and white rescue cat - who served as the chief mouser Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) between 2016-2020 - had moved to the British Overseas Territory as "feline relations consultant".

Palmerston's account claimed he had been "lured out of retirement" by "diplomacy and a purr-fect role" with Bermuda's new governor, Andrew Murdoch.

Murdoch, a contemporary of Palmerston at the Foreign Office, has owned the famous cat since his retirement.

Welcome back, boss.

Somerset vs International Cavaliers, 1966

This is what Sunday afternoon cricket used to be like on television before the advent of the 40-over Sunday League. I have the faintest memory of watching a Cavaliers game myself.

A Somerset side containing stalwarts like Brian Langford, Roy Virgin and Fred Rumsey, is beaten by a team of stars, with the spin of Gary Sobers and Richie Benaud bewitching the Somerset lower order.

The Cavaliers opening partnership that almost wins the game on its own is Bobby Simpson, the current Australian captain, and Roy Marshall, who played four tests for the West Indies in the early Fifties before becoming a key member of the Hampshire side.

All this and John Arlott nearly being killed by a six too.

The Joy of Six 1321

"In the past two weeks, Elon Musk - a man no one elected to any office - has gained unprecedented access to Social Security payment systems, fired federal workers, shuttered entire agencies, and installed his loyalists throughout the government. If this were happening in any other country, we'd call it what it is: a coup." Parker Molloy complains that the media is treating this outrage like standard political news.

Rachel Coldicutt asks what Musk's rampage through Washington means for Britain's technology policy.

"Something significant happened last week. The UK government forced the chair of the Competition and Markets Authority to resign. Marcus Bokkerink’s crime? Not being sufficiently 'pro-growth'. The chair of a regulator who is supposed to ensure a level playing field for businesses has been replaced by a former Amazon executive." Sue Hawley argues that Keir Starmer's drive to cut red tape could unleash a new wave of dirty money and corporate bad behaviour.

Jonathan Mills draws parallels between British universities today and British Leyland in the Seventies: "When an organisation's revenues fall, or look like they will ... panic sets in. The organisation starts looking at profitability and because it's all set up around departments in the first place, that's how management think in a crisis. Unproductive departments must go, so they look at the department accounts and pick a productive department with the least "profit", and close it. Wonderful! Next year will see a return to profit! Except that it doesn't."

José Vela Castillo introduces us to the revolutionary immigrant architects whose stories inspired Brady Corbet’s film The Brutalist.

"The rest of the cast exited and still we waited. Frankly, having stood there like lemons for nearly an hour we were on the brink of giving up but then we heard her trademark voice – a cross between an exultant yell and a prowling growl – and she came bowling out of the theatre, extravagantly gesturing and slightly fried. Correction: slaughtered. Thrilled, it seemed to us, to see two schoolboys anxious for her autograph, she threw herself upon us and to our amazement, we wound up walking her back to the Savoy." David Benedict on his meetings with Elaine Stritch.

Tuesday, February 04, 2025

The immense industrial inclines of the Shropshire hills

The LeiceExplore crew have been to Shropshire! They explore the remains of the quarrying industry on top of Titterstone Clee - coal was mined up there too as recently as the second world war too.

A post on here from 2016 has a video on the line from Ludlow to these quarries and its inclines. It's well worth a look too.

The Winwood brothers before The Spencer Davis Group


Before Steve Winwood was in The Spencer Davis Group, he played in his big brother's jazz band. Here's an advertisement for them from the Walsall Observer of 14 June 1963.

All the books say that band was called the Muff Woody Jazz Band, but this suggests they are wrong.

Muff Winwood, incidentally, was christened Mervyn, but nicknamed Muff at school after the popular mule of the period.

Steve Winwood had just turned 15 at the time of this concert. In an interview with Mojo from 1997, Muff described his kid brother's first appearance with him in a jazz band:
Muff soon found his way into a real trad jazz band. "We needed a piano player so I brought Steve along. He was only 11, but he played everything perfectly. They stood with their mouths open. 
"Because he was under-age, we had to get him long trousers to make him look older, and even then we'd sneak him in through the pub kitchens. He'd play hidden behind the piano so nobody would know."

Monday, February 03, 2025

Ed Davey: Britain needs to call out these overpowerful billionaires

The blurb on the Liberal Democrats' YouTube account runs:

Ed Davey claps back at Elon Musk over insults made, calling for the UK to lead with its' international allies in Europe to hold Musk and other billionaires such as Mark Zuckerberg to account. 

"If Donald Trump won't, then Britain, with our relationship with Europe, needs to call out these over-powerful billionaires.

"We can't allow them to get away with what they're trying to get away with. It is too damaging."

Apparently "claps back" is something the young people say.

If you are Tango'd it will not be televised: Hugh Dennis, Ray Wilkins and Gil Scott-Heron

Here, from 1992, is one of the great lost television commercials. Lost because it had to be withdrawn after children started Tangoing each other in the school playground and ear drums got perforated as a result.

The excitable commentator is Hugh Dennis, who was already famous from The Mary Whitehouse Experience. The laconic analyst is the late great Ray Wilkins, who will always be Butch Wilkins to a Chelsea fan of my vintage. And the deep voice at the end belongs, unexpectedly, to Gil Scott-Heron.

The Joy of Six 1320

Brian Klaas examines a paradox that is killing democracy: "More information is readily available than was previously imaginable in human history, and yet vast numbers of people now understand the world exclusively through what they see on the internet, a funhouse mirror that distorts all it reflects."

"Having bewailed its enormous energy deficit for decades, America now produces far more oil than it consumes, making it a net petroleum exporter. Yet it continues to suck in vast quantities of Canadian crude. Indeed, that reliance on Canadian oil has only grown in recent years." Ed Conway explains why the US still needs Canada's oil.

Adrian Horton watches The Alabama Solution, a new documentary that exposes rampant state violence and inhumane conditions inside prisons.

Ross McNally makes the case for reintroducing the lynx to Britain: "Without large predators, deer populations have exploded, compounded by the breeding of red deer for shooting, as well as the introduction of non-native fallow, sika, muntjac and Chinese water deer."

"Do I identify with the Lady? Oh yeah, always. I’m nothing like the Lady of Shalott, but I guess I wanted to be … When Mick Jagger wrote the lyrics for As Tears Go By, he knew this poem. There’s a bit he always said he used from here, the thing about 'it was the closing of the day'." Stephanie Hernandez discusses Marianne Faithfull's engagement with Romantic literature.

"The Australian showman was a passionate collector, with a particular fondness for the louche literati of 1890s London and the paintings of his fellow antipodean Charles Conder". Jonathan Bastable ton Barry Humprhies' art collection, which is being auctioned by Christie's later this month.

Sunday, February 02, 2025

"Paris is a woman but London is an independent man puffing his pipe in a pub"

So said Jack Kerouac in his Lonesome Traveler. We join John Rogers as he retraces a walk the Beat Generation novelist once took through London.

As the blurb on YouTube says:

American Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac, visited London in April 1957 while on a big trip just before the publication of his most celebrated book, On the Road. He recorded his trip in his book, Lonesome Traveler. 
This video follows the walk he took when he arrived by train at Victoria Station and walked past Buckingham Palace, up the Strand to Fleet Street to St Paul’s Cathedral. He then went to the King Lud pub for a ‘sixpenny Welsh rarebit and a stout’, before taking the bus back to Buckingham Gate. 
In Lonesome Traveler Kerouac wrote, ‘Paris is a woman but London is an independent man puffing his pipe in a pub’.

John has a Patreon account to support his videos and blogs at The Lost Byway.

You may also enjoy a post on Kerouac and Lonesome Traveler by C.G. Fewston.

Sandy Campbell, his dog and Queen Victoria

Of all Her Majesty's Highland servants and ghillies, and there are some forty or more all told, Sandy Campbell and Donald Stewart are the favourites. Donald, who is Sandy's senior and superior, carries more responsibility and is more often in personal contact with the Court when at Balmoral, and has his quarters, accordingly, near at hand. He is, in short, the Balmoral keeper, and dubbed the Queen's Head Stalker. 

Sandy Campbell, on the other hand, has his quarters at Glassalt Shiel on Loch Muick (pronounced Mick) and on the eastern boundary of the Balmoral estate, and although taking his orders from headquarters is to the Queen and members of the Court party Sandy Campbell of Glassalt Shiel and a persona grata with Her Majesty as he was with Prince Albert in his day, and a great favourite of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Connaught, and all the immediate members of the royal household and others who come about Balmoral and visit Glassalt Shiel for a day's deerstalking. 

Yes, it's time to return to Balmoral and my great great grandmother's brother Sandy Campbell. I blogged part of the article about him from The Sphere the other day, and the rest is here.

I've been to Glas-allt-Shiel (that seems the most popular way of writing it today) and walked all round Loch Muick. I remember the change in the air as you enter the pinewood around the house - it suddenly becomes wonderfully soft.

You can even stay at Glas-allt-Shiel yourself: there's a bothy in one of the out buildings.

Anyway, back to my kinsman:

Sandy Campbell stands 6 ft. 3 in. in his stockings, is stout in proportion, athletic and hardy. If a model of a Highland ghillie were wanted a better could not be got than Sandy Campbell of Glassalt Shiel. He can give points to any of his compeers at stalking the red deer in the royal forests; he knows their haunts and lairs, and is a sure guide, philosopher, and friend to the princelings who come up to him from the palace below. 

The mists of Lochnagar may be terrible to others, but Sandy knows his way through the densest cloud, and his footing is as sure as that of the deer itself over the snow steppes of these bleak and dreary regions. Sandy never wastes powder on a second shot the first always finds its mark and although his work is not to shoot deer, but to save and protect them, yet as we all know the keeper's rifle often makes the bag. 

As an angler Sandy knows where the big fish lie in Loch Muick, and the times and seasons when it is desirable to send on a basket of speckled trout for the royal larder. He makes his own flies and rods, and all that he needs from the tackle shops are a few irons and a hank of gut. 

Sandy lives alone in the Glassalt Shiel, for like his old playmate and friend John Brown he has never as yet been tempted into the wiles of wedlock. His sister was house keeper to him for many years, but she died some two years ago, and since then Sandy has taken full charge of his own domestic arrangements and save when the Queen is at Balmoral, and the Shiel likely to be used, there is no one about the place but himself. When, however, visitors are expected a staff of servants is hurriedly driven up from Balmoral, the blinds are run up, the fires more heavily heaped up, and life reigns supreme till they again take their departure. 

But Sandy is never lonely. In the winter and spring he may be months with only his collie and his books he is an omnivorous reader of history but in the summer, and especially the autumn, not a day passes but he has troops of visitors from far and near, and when the Court is at Balmoral the Glassalt Shiel is a favourite resort not only of Her Majesty but of all who come about her. 

Her Majesty does not now visit the Shiel so often nor so regularly as she was able to do till within the last few years, but when she does then Sandy is seen at his best. He has a museum for Sandy is a collector after his own fashion of unique curios, nicely arranged in what he calls his shoppie (shop) at the end of the house. Probably there is no other of its kind extant. 

Certainly it is an original and unique collection, ranging from a boot protector to a shell from Khartoum, gifts of pictures, signed photographs, spears, arrow-heads, and trinkets collected by and presented to Sandy by royalties and others, from the Queen down to her humblest subject who has visited these parts for it is an understood rule with Sandy and his patrons that whoever is permitted to view the collection must add something to it, other than coin of the realm. Sandy draws the line at filthy lucre. 

His object is to have a unique collection of curios, and as he cannot assume the role of collector himself and become an antiquarian hunter he has this way of bring ing the mountain to him since he cannot go to it. Besides he has been the recipient of so many royal avours in the way of hunting knives, dirks, flasks, rifles, scarf pins, and medals that he has a pride in showing them off as well as keeping them intact and in good preservation. 

The Queen has another subject of interest. She never forgets to grant an interview to "Sir William Wallace." He is Sandy's faithful friend and companion, and he and his collie are never far apart. The Queen has a special penchant for dogs, and for Sandy's collie in particular. When Sandy visits the royal quarters at Balmoral "Sir William" always accompanies him as the Queen is sure to ask for him, and to have a titbit brought for him. "Sir William" knows Her Majesty quite well, and whether on the road at the Shiel or the Castle his demonstrations of joy at her appearance are peculiarly demonstrative. 

Sandy takes his full share of all the ceremonies at Balmoral, and the Jubilee rejoicings called forth his special good sense and ripe experience of what would please Her Majesty best. When the servants and tenants met to consider what would best commemorate the auspicious event ol 1897 he suggested the granite well between Abergeldie and Balmoral. Her Majesty was specially pleased with the idea, and has drunk several times from it. 

Sandy is just now in the height of his glory. He has had the Prince of Wales, for whom he entertains an attachment and affection that only Highland ghillies are capable of showing, the Duke of Connaught, the Duke of York, and other royalties, and they have had an extra good season among the grouse and deer, and for the next twelve months to come nothing will be talked of but the visits of the Princes and the bags made on Glassalt Shiel.

According to Robert Smith in A Queen's Country, Victoria liked her stalkers and ghillies to be clean shaven, but Sandy refused to part with his beard. There will be another post about him soon.

Steve Winwood, Sheila E. and Orianthi: Everybody's Everything

This week's music video reminds us of a better world: an American President and First Lady honouring a Mexican immigrant.

Each year Kennedy Center Honors are awarded to prominent figures in the performing arts for their lifetime of contributions to American culture. And in 2013 the recipients were the opera singer Martina Arroyo, Herbie Hancock, Billy Joel, Shirley MacLaine, and Carlos Santana.

Here is part of the segment of the awards ceremony that honoured Santana, with Barack and Michelle Obama in the audience.

Because this is Liberal England, yes, that is Steve Winwood in the Cotswold landowner sideburns that he affected for a while. Winwood has played and recorded with Santana.

With him is the percussionist Sheila E., who collaborated with Prince for many years and is the daughter of one of the members of Santana's original band. 

And on guitar is Orianthi, an Australian singer and songwriter who has played with Alice Cooper.

Saturday, February 01, 2025

'LIKE A ROCK' Cops hunting Edinburgh bike ned who battered man with an onion




Our Headline of the Day Award goes to the Scottish Sun for this tale of life in the nation's capital.

Max Wilkinson launches campaign to keep Six Nations free to air

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Tom Kiernan. Delme Thomas. Peter Brown. Stack Stevens. Jean Gachassin.

Somewhere in my heart, it is always a winter Saturday and there is a Five Nations (as it then was) international on television. England are probably losing - in those days you did not so much support them as suffer with them. And if Wales are playing Ireland, it's impossible to tell the players apart in black and white.

So I was pleased to hear that Max Wilkinson, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for culture, media and sport has launched a campaign to keep the Six Nations on terrestrial television channels. He told the Independent:

"I’m personally deeply concerned by the news that the tournament could be behind a paywall as soon as next year - and I’m sure many rugby fans up and down the country feel the same.

"It would be a travesty if the public were deprived of the right to see their countries compete. That’s why it’s essential that the government acts now to protect free-to-air coverage and save our Six Nations."

If does act, the government will be saving the rugby authorities from themselves. As cricket has learnt, if people can no longer see the sport, it is in danger of losing its standing in our national culture.

I shall watch Ireland vs England later this afternoon, though in Eddie Jones's last years England became really dull to watch.

One problem with the game is that those authorities are constantly tinkering with the laws. This year, I read, scrum halves will be given more protection.

As my pet gripe in recent years is that they are allowed to spend an age, free from challenge, rolling the ball about with a boot before they play it, I can't see how that is going to improve the game.

In truth, the game has never been the same since Bill McLaren died. Artificial Intelligence should be harnessed to bring him back, complete with his favourite phrases: "As the game enters its final quarter," "As the referee blows for no side" and "playing together for the nineteenth time in a major international."