Foxes need to be humble - Chaplin

BBC Sport wins our Headline of the Day Award.

Personally, I've not heard many complaints about foxes being overproud. They more often involve dustbins.

Lloyd George’s oratory owed a heavy debt to the music hall

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In 1992 the journalist Edward Pearce published a diary of that year's general election campaign. It was reviewed for the London Review of Books by Peter Clarke.

Here is Clarke on Lloyd George:

Lloyd George, too, did his bit to lower the tone of politics once secularisation had made the pulpit an obsolescent model. 

As A.J.P. Taylor liked to point out, Lloyd George's platform oratory owed a heavy debt to the music hall. He could control an audience with the inspired timing of a stand-up comic. His one-liner about the House of Lords – "five hundred men, chosen accidentally from among the unemployed" – was fit to bring the house down. 

He was the politician as entertainer, subordinating reason to emotion as much as any party political broadcast in the last campaign. He could pirouette, like Chaplin, from the broadest belly-laugh to tear-jerking pathos without having to say: "but to be serious for a moment, ladies and gentlemen ..." 

Yet, as the last of the great pre-electronic politicians, Lloyd George became a hapless victim of technological advance in the Twenties. While, like Archie Rice, he was still having a go on the public stage, Stanley Baldwin stole into the sitting-room of anyone lucky enough to have a new wireless. 

His avoidance of histrionics in favour of the fireside manner was pitched perfectly for his middle-brow, middle-class constituency, and showed that the public meeting, in its classic form, was doomed. Baldwin could be relied upon to rise to the small occasion.

The Joy of Six 1470

Timothy Snyder reports from a frightened city: "In the schools and churches of Springfield, Ohio, people are making hasty preparations for a “large deportation” promised by the president. To all appearances, and according to local sources, the city is two or three days away from a federal ethnic cleansing, grounded in a hate campaign organized by the vice-president and American Nazis. The destined victims are ten thousand or more Haitians."

"I think the way he is trying to interfere with our democracy, generally our country, is quite outrageous. For the richest man to come here with his totally unfounded and ignorant comments is shocking." Interviewed by Big Issue, Ed Davey sticks it to Elon Musk.

"The use of armed militia to terrorise the inhabitants of Minneapolis is not just beyond the rule of law, it is fascistic. It’s the final evidential point between what is happening today and the political forces that ripped Europe apart in the last century: and that’s not just me saying this, it’s some of the most eminent historians of authoritarianism." Carole Cadwalladr says what’s happening in the US is technofascism and it could happen here.

Madeleine Brettingham on the difficulty of making a living as a writer today: "The biggest revolution in how writing is distributed since the printing press has decimated all our assumptions about how creative careers work. Somewhere between the noughties and the pandemic everything changed, leaving many (including me) attempting to climb up ladders that no longer exist."

Norma Clarke reviews a book on working-class lives in Charlie Chaplin's London: "Charlie was a gutter child, a 'street arab' in the language of the time: undersized, skinny, his bright eyes on the main chance as he roamed up and down between Kennington and New Cut, where market stalls overflowed with produce he had no money to buy and probably became adept at stealing."

Did a tsunami hit the Bristol Channel four centuries ago? Simon Haslett revisits the great flood of 1607.

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Claire Jones says Britain is sliding backwards into open racism: "Shame has evaporated. With skin colour as their yardstick, the UK’s self-appointed 'defence warriors' are having a field day shouting at anyone brown-skinned, from ordinary folk to celebrities and political figures, to 'go home'."

"While it’s relatively easy for regulators to monitor the actions of Snapchat or TikTok, it’s impossible to police the millions of websites that might contain forums and chats. Any policy shift will have failed if it ends up pushing kids into even less regulated places on the internet." A social media ban for under-16s would be popular but, asks James Clayton, would it really help?

"Off 16 planned non-London LTNs tracked by the researchers, just one was fully implemented – a failure rate of around 94 per cent." Megan Huws argues that councils lack resources to deliver Low Traffic Neighbourhoods amid the culture wars.

Leanne Tritton on the difficulty of reusing redundant buildings in Britain today.

James Bloodworth looks at what the fame Russell Brand enjoyed until recently tells us about our society.

"It's a shot of such pure emotion and simple poignancy that it is regularly cited as the greatest ending in cinematic history. In the 95 years since City Lights' release, numerous films have tried to replicate its subtle artistry and the power of its performances." Gregory Wakeman watches a Charlie Chaplin masterpiece.

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"The status quo is no longer acceptable: it’s either federalism or independence. It’s time for the Liberal Democrats to fight for what we believe, rather than define ourselves by what we’re against. Let’s either make federalism happen or go down fighting for it." Andrew Page on what should be the Lib Dem response to the growing support for Scottish independence.

Regina Keith outlines the long history of school meals in Britain.

"An inadequate train service and vanishing high street are common complaints of Barrovians – and visitors will say those complaints are justified. Portland Walk in Barrow’s town centre lost Topshop, River Island and Marks & Spencer stores in 2020, to name just a few." Adam Payne asks what the Conservatives' claimed "levelling up" agenda can offer Barrow-in-Furness.

Edward Lucas pays tribute to his father J.R. Lucas, Oxford philosopher and Cold War champion of the Czechs.

We have Charlie Chaplin to thank for the blockbuster, argues John Sturgis.

Flickering Lamps discovers an ancient cemetery in the heart of Greenwich Park.

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"Democracy is not just a tool for making decisions and picking between options, it’s an ongoing process of representation and dialogue that’s seeking to establish a way in which we can all comfortably co-exist. Voting is not the be-all and end-all of the process but rather just one stage within it." Nick Barlow says Brexit is a symptom and a result of a much wider malaise in British politics.

With the government doing all it can to raise the political temperature, Gabriel Power offers a list of the MPs who have been murdered in office.

An ethic of wonder that stood at the centre of Rachel Carson's ecological philosophy, argues Jennifer Stitt.

Robin Burgess on the reality of poverty in Northampton.

Catherine Bennett is not a fan of the vox pop: "This eager dissemination of unfounded, unchallenged, occasionally misleading or alcohol-misted opinion only contributes to the impression, reinforced by Question Time, that voter deliberation, if not actively redundant, is decreasingly a BBC priority."

“Chaplin is the only person to have gone down into cinematic history without any shadow of a doubt. The films he left behind can never grow old.” In 1972 Andrei Tarkovsky chose his top 10 films, writes Karen Strike.

The Strange World of Gurney Slade

What to make of Anthony Newley?

The young Tony Robinson wasn’t sure, and he played his son on the West End stage:

I was awestruck by Tony Newley; he was intense, anguished, and seemed completely detached from the rest of the world. He never spoke to me – that was part of his mystery – but I watched him obsessively from the wings … Every night I mimicked his words, and gazed agonisingly into the spotlight pulling a heartbroken face, just like he did. 

Today, when Newley is something of a forgotten figure, it is hard for any of us to be sure, but I have a feeling he was more important than we realise.

He links two great eras of 20th-century British culture – 1940s cinema and 1960s pop – co-wrote the songs Feelin’ Good and Goldfinger, influenced David Bowie’s singing and was negotiating for a regular role in EastEnders when he died.

So what to make of The Strange World of Gurney Slade?

I have long heard of this 1960 comedy series and recently bought and watched the DVD.

It begins with the hero Gurney Slade, played by Newley, escaping from an awful situation comedy and going out to explore the world.

There he indulges in internal monologues about the absurdities of everyday life that you can imagine in Tony Hancock’s voice. Then a section about the absurdities of dating, featuring Una Stubbs in a very early role, looks forward to observational comedy.

After that things get really strange. There are a group of children – strange symbolic children who resemble the ones you find in 1940s Hollywood films such as The Blue Bird and The Boy with Green Hair.

And it ends with a spot of the absurdist theatre that was popular in 1960s as the characters sit round and waiting to be written into another show.

The cast is strong: Bernie Winters, Hugh Paddick and Fenella Fielding turn up, while the floor manager Newley brushes off as he makes his escape at the start is played by a young Geoffrey Palmer.

But is it funny?

It didn’t make me laugh, but then Charlie Chaplin doesn’t make me laugh even though I can see he is a genius. In the same way, I can see that The Strange World of Gurney Slade is important and interesting.

And the show gives its own answer. At one point Newley is put on trial for not being funny. After rejecting the defence counsel supplied by the court, an awful red-nosed comedian, he defends himself. 

If being like him is what is meant by being funny, he asks by implication, who wants to be funny? 

The best comment on the show is to be found in a trailer Newley made, still in character, for its second showing.

As Andy Murray once described it on We Are Cult:

On a dark street, a smartly-dressed young man stands with a panting sheepdog, peering at a tattered advertising hoarding for a TV show. Addressing the figure pictured on the hoarding, the man says, “Well, it was a noble effort, wasn’t it? You tried. I give you that, you tried. But the public is no man’s fool, you know. The public knows what it wants, and you had no right to even try and suggest something different. Anyway, the public doesn’t like anything… suggestive.” 

The man nods down towards the sheepdog. “He thinks you were before your time. Personally, I don’t think we’re ever going to reach the time that you’re in.”

The old Hippodrome in Brighton

After my flirtation with restoration at Embassy Court, let's return to derelict Brighton.

The old Hippodrome is tucked in, rather unexpectedly, just behind the seafront.

It was built in 1897 and Wikipedia tells its colourful history:

Shows of all types were staged there, and top-name entertainers such as Sarah Bernhardt, Sammy Davis, Jr., Gracie Fields, Harry Houdini, Buster Keaton, Lillie Langtry and Laurel and Hardy appeared. 

Laurence Olivier played the venue early in his stage career—but fell over on his first entrance on his début. 

One of Charlie Chaplin's first roles was a bit-part in theatre impresario Fred Karno's comedy Saturday to Monday, staged in May 1907; and Vivien Leigh gave an acclaimed performance in George Bernard Shaw's play The Doctor's Dilemma. 

Local stars also featured: Max Miller, the Brighton-born music hall entertainer and comedian, appeared on many occasions during the mid-20th century; and conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton, whose vaudeville career began in their home town in 1911 at the age of three, topped the bill with their variety show.

The article goes on to say that 4000 people attended concerts by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in 1964, but that could not help the Hippodrome closing the following year.

It was bought by the Rank Organisation and turned into a Mecca Bingo hall and remained open in that guise until 2007.

Hopes of restoring it remain, those this whole quarter of the city seem run down at present. Our Brighton Hippodrome has the latest news.

The building's glory is its interior, as you will see from the video below.

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"Liberalism is dead. Or at least it is on the ropes. Triumphant a quarter-century ago, when liberal democracy appeared to have prevailed definitively over the totalitarian utopias that exacted such a toll in blood, it is now under siege from without and within." Read Roger Cohen in the New York Times.

Evan Harris claims Hacked Off are not hypocrites for their stance on John Whittingdale.

You can never have enough takedowns of Seumas "Christopher Robin" Milne. This one by Peter Wilby is particularly good.

Felicity Cloake asks why eating has become so complicated.

Backwatersman pays tribute to the England batsman James Taylor, who has been forced to retire because of a heart condition: "When he took on ... great lummoxes like Andre Nel and Tremlett he might have been Chaplin outwitting Eric Campbell with a deft swish of his walking cane. In fact, one of the many things I remain hugely grateful to him for is allowing me to recapture (quite late in life) that childlike pleasure of having a favourite player, one whom I liked more than I could ever quite rationally account for."

"The locks known as Caen Hill ... rise 237 feet over two miles – with 16 of them virtually back to back.Each trip up and down takes five hours." David Hencke and friends take on one of the inland waterways' greatest challenges.

Vanished Leicester: Britannia Works, Granby Street

Copyright © Dennis Calow

This imposing factory stood at the north end of Granby Street. The modern block next to it occupies the site of the yet more imposing Temperance Hall, where Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Charlie Chaplin performed.

The Granby Street Conservation Area Character Appraisal says the Britannia Works were demolished in 1962, but the University of Leicester Special Collections date this photograph, taken when demolition was about to begin, to 1965.

The Barley Mow, the pub on the other side of the Britannia Works, is still serving.

A reminder to Ukip that the British laughed at Hitler

This morning I blogged about the claim by Ukip MEP Bill Etheridge that Hitler was a "magnetic and forceful public speaker" who "achieved a great deal".

As I said then, "to the British Hitler's performance always seemed ranting and laughable". Not for the first time, there is something strangely unpatriotic in Ukip's view of the world.

I looked first for an example of a healthy British attitude to Hitler in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.



And if that doesn't quite work for the modern viewer, here is a scene suggested by a reader in the comments to this morning's post.

Sir Roderick Spode was P.G. Wodehouse's parody of Oswald Moseley, but here he is clearly attempting to emulate the rhetorical style of the German dictator.

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Mark Pack looks at the lessons of Lord Ashcroft's poll of Conservative-Liberal Democrat marginals.

"The Labour party's capitulation on social security for the young is not an appropriate response to the modern world, but a dangerous step into the past," says Stuart Weir on Open Democracy.

Jennie Rigg enjoyed her day at the Headingley test match.

While Stumbling and Mumbling ponders the use of nightwatchmen in cricket and much else in "Liam Plunkett and the tragedy of social science".

"Charlie Chaplin was famous in a way that no one had been before; arguably, no one has been as famous since. At the peak of his popularity, his mustachioed screen persona, the Tramp, was said to be the most recognized image in the world." On A.V. Club, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky asks why Charlie Chaplin still matters a century on.

Graham Dukes, on The Grey Hares blog, writes about his part in the early years of the railway preservation movement. "As soon as my academic duties allowed I hastened to Towyn and found myself stepping into the office of Wharf Station, unchanged for the better part of a century. Tom Rolt himself was there, struggling patiently with a Victorian ticket stamping machine."

Palmers pet shop, Camden

This shopfront took my fancy when I was in Camden for the Steve Winwood concert at the Roundhouse a couple of months ago.

The building is now occupied by a cafe, but a Camden News article from 2008 describes Palmers in its heyday:

George Palmer set up the shop in 1918 and counted famous faces among his customers. When Winston Churchill wanted a cat to prowl the corridors of Number 10, he popped into Palmers and went back to Whitehall with a ginger kitten. Mr Palmer was given a cigar and a signed copy of the PM’s autobiography as a thank-you. Charlie Chaplin wrote to them from Switzerland and bought two Abyssinian kittens.

Alison and Sue recall working as Saturday girls with their aunt, and the host of exotic creatures they shared the shop with. Sue said: “It was like a mini-zoo back then. The pet trade 50 years ago was amazing – you could literally sell anything. They had parrots, baboons, chimpanzees and mongooses.”

Nick Clegg and the silent comedians

I am probably the last person entitled to complain, but I can't help noticing that Nick Clegg is given to drawing badly outdated comic parallels.

On Friday he said:

"Charlie Chaplin could do a better job running the Home Office than this Labour Government."

And on Saturday it was:

"Frankly the Keystone Cops would do a better job running the Home Office and keeping our data safe than this government, and if this government cannot keep the data of thousands of guilty people safe, why on earth should we give them the data of millions of innocent people in an ID card database?"

At least "frankly" is of more recent vintage. It was Paddy Ashdown's catchphrase in the 1990s.

Fuckin' 'Ell It's Fred Titmus

For those of you who are not familiar with him, here is a biography:

Fred Titmus, one of cricket's great survivors, was a St Pancras-born Cockney who walked like Charlie Chaplin and wisecracked like Groucho Marx. Despite the rivalry of three other top-class offspinners in Ray Illingworth, John Mortimore and David Allen, he won 53 Test caps over 19 years and played county cricket in five decades, between 1949 and 1982. He even came back after a horrific boating accident in the West indies cost him four toes. 

His artistry as a slow and flighty bowler contrasted with a highly developed practical streak that made him a fine judge of a player. "Too intelligent for his ability," was his appraisal of one; of another, a youngster who scored a dashing hundred against Middlesex at Lord's, he commented: "I like to see someone make a bad 'undred before I make my mind up." 

He made three tours of Australia, and justified his selection each time. But his favourite memory of the country, he claimed, was "The sight of a ground emptying an hour before the close of play." 

John Thicknesse

Alternative comedy is the new establishment

On New Year's Day Channel 4 broadcast The Comedians' Comedian - a countdown of the top 50 comedians as voted for by more than 300 comedy performers, writers, producers and directors. Like all these "best of" programmes it was introduced by Jimmy Carr, but it was a class above most of them. Paul Ross was nowhere to be seen and there were no D list celebs intoning: "We always watched Magpie. Blue Peter was for posh kids."

The winner was Peter Cook, which seems fair enough. You could argue for days about whether he was the funniest, but it is a matter of fact that he has been the most influential comedian of modern times.

More interesting, though, was the treatment of some of the performers who came further down the list. Anyone who did not fit the required mould for a modern comedian - left-wing, swears a lot, at Cambridge with Stephen Fry and so on - was treated with contempt. So though such minor figures as Reeves & Mortimer and French & Saunders were revered, when Charlie Chaplin and Bob Monkhouse were being discussed there were as many clips of people disparaging them as there were of praise.

I always had a guilty liking for Monkhouse because of his professionalism and lines like: "Fifty years ago, when I said I was going to be a comedian, people laughed. They're not laughing now." Chaplin is a more interesting case. In terms of fame and the way he provides a link between Dickensian London and Hollywood he has a claim to be one of the great men of the twentieth century.

Is Chaplin funny? The odd thing is that, watching him today, you can see that he is a brilliant performer but you don't laugh. Normally, when comedy ceases to be funny it becomes merely embarrassing, but this has not happened to Chaplin. Whatever you think of him, he deserves better than to be patronised by the likes of Ben Elton and Richard Curtis in Blackadder.

And now that Elton is the compere of the Royal Variety Performance we can see clearly that the Alternative generation has become the new establishment. More than that, it is every bit as blinkered and self-satisfied as the Jimmy Tarbucks and Bruce Forsyths they replaced.