First newspaper listing for what became the Spencer Davis Group?

It's not much to look at, but this notice from the Birmingham Mail for 23 October 1963 sets a new record for the earliest press mention of Steve Winwood I can find.

The previous record was 3 December 1963, and because new titles are being added to the British Newspaper Archive all the time, it's possible that this one will be broken too.

Here again, though he was only 15, Steve Winwood shares top billing with Spencer Davis. The band has not yet become the Spencer Davis Group.

This notice is on page 2 of the newspaper. Stories on page 1 include:

• Final moves made to allow prime minister Alec Douglas Home to renounce his peerage;
• All seven aboard a test flight of the BAC III die when it crashes in Wiltshire;
• Michael Foot continues to recover from a serious car accident.

Spencer Davis is in the Manchester Evening News for 18 October 1963, but it looks as though he was sitting in with the Graham Bond Organisation the following evening rather than playing with the rest of the SDG.

The Joy of Six 1300

"The lesson of the 1974 reorganisation is not that it put in place a robust system of local government which would survive for 50 or 70 years like the previous arrangements, but that it heralded a near-permanent revolution of structures and types of leadership." Tony Travers on the perils of reorganising local government.

Freethinking Economist asks why Labour expects to improve Britain's record on economic growth when its policies are so similar to those that have been tried in the past.

"In the years AD ('after Dennett'), the story continues and - in large part because of Dennett - philosophy of mind divested itself of its obsession with our ordinary thought and talk about the mind, and instead took its inspiration from science - in particular, neuroscience." Tim Bayne examines Daniel Dennett's contribution to philosophy.

"When the Prince of Orange marched in triumph into London, in December 1688, he did so after ordering all the remaining English troops in the capital to withdraw a minimum of 20 miles from the city. The bulk of the Dutch army was brought into, or placed around, London; Dutch Blue Guards took up all the posts around Whitehall and Hyde Park; and London remained under Dutch military occupation for 18 months." An old article by Jonathan Israel challenges the Whig account of the Glorious Revolution.

Olivia Petter explains why digital cameras are back.

Jonathan Nunn argues that the East End's pie and mash shops were responsible for their own demise: "Outside the East London hipster stereotype, there is still a working-class in Cockney heartlands – in Bow, in Whitechapel, in Dagenham, in Romford – they just happen to not all be white. Pie and mash shops could and should have adapted to bring this demographic in. They could have ensured their survival by instilling a new generation with some sense of ownership over it. Instead, they have chose"n to become ossified.

Launde Abbey: Thomas Cromwell's little heaven here on earth

There is an abbey, Launde, in the heart of England. The air is always sweet there and it's quiet. A little heaven here on earth. And I think to myself: "I'll live here one day, when all my work is done."

These were Thomas Cromwell's last words in the wonderful Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light yesterday evening.

Launde is a real place and still much as Cromwell described it - a green bowl in the hills of High Leicestershire.

Today Launde Abbey is a Church of England retreat house. Its website sets out the site's history:

Launde Abbey was founded as an Augustinian priory in 1119 by Richard Basset, a royal official of Henry I. During the first century of its life the community buildings, cloister and garth were built, including an imposing church of which one side chapel still survives, now used as the Chapel at the present-day Abbey.

Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s chief minister responsible for the dissolution of the monasteries, found Launde’s location very desirable. After visiting the priory in April 1540 he wrote in his Remembrances (a kind of personal journal) "Myself for Launde," although he never occupied the house as he was executed just three months later for treason. 

His son Gregory, however, had kept royal favour – no doubt helped by his marriage to Elizabeth Seymour, sister to Henry VIII’s beloved wife Jane – and lived at Launde Abbey with Elizabeth for ten years; during this time he had some of the dilapidated monastic buildings restored or rebuilt. Gregory was buried at Launde and a monument erected by his wife remains in the Chapel to this day.

I took these photos at some sort of open day back in 2008. I understand the buildings at Launde have been fully restored since then and the site is looking far more prosperous. You can find a photograph of the interior of the chapel, including the monument to Gregory Cromwell, on the Launde Abbey website.

We knew how to celebrate election victories in Harborough in 1892

This blog's hero J.W. 'Paddy' Logan gained Harborough from the Conservatives at a by-election in May 1891 and held it at the general election the following July.

The Leicester Chronicle (8 August 1892) reported the resultant celebrations:

On Saturday afternoon the Liberals of the Harborough Division visited the residence of Mr, J.W. Logan, M.P., at East Langton Grange, to celebrate the triumphant return of that gentleman to Parliament. 

An immense number of people were present from all parts of the division, long special trains running from Leicester. 

Tea was partaken of in the riding school, and in the evening a public meeting was held, when congratulatory speeches were delivered, to which Mr. Logan responded.

Good news: Tiny Forests are coming to Harborough

From HFM News:

Tennis-court sized areas of woodland known as ‘Tiny Forests’ are set to be created in two parts of the Harborough District.

Areas on The Headlands in Market Harborough and Devitt Way in Broughton Astley have been selected for the project, which will see hundreds of fast-growing trees put in the ground.

Tiny Forests? Earthwatch explains:

A Tiny Forest is a dense, fast-growing native woodland, about the size of a tennis court. These forests are not only great homes for butterflies, birds, bees and other wildlife but also a place for people to connect with, and learn about, nature. Each forest is a unique public asset – planted and cared for by the local community.

These super tiny, super powerful forests aim to mimic natural forests but in a small space. They include a mix of native trees which, over time, will create a wildlife-rich woodland. Tiny Forests don’t require much space and they can be planted anywhere that land is available – in a park, school or on a brownfield site.

Neil Sedaka: One-Way Ticket to the Blues

I came across a singles chart from 1979, and there among the New Wave classics was a disco track: One Way Ticket by Eruption. I was pleased to be reminded of it - it's a good record - and almost chose it for today's Sunday music video.

But then I got into the history of One Way Ticket and found that the original version had been on the B-side of Neil Sedaka's 1959 hit Oh! Carol. (Carol, as you probably know, was Carol Klein, a former girlfriend of his, who we know as the singer and songwriter Carole King.)

One Way Ticket, though, is not a Neil Sedaka song - it was written by by Jack Keller and Hank Hunter. Keller, like Sedaka and Carole King, was one of the Brill Building stable of songwriters.

There's a lot wrong with One Way Ticket - the very 1959 backing singers, the cutesy references to other songs in the lyrics, Sedaka's 'laugh in the voice' singing style - but it's still an exiting record and must have sounded even more so when it was first released.

Meet C.W. Allen: Market Harborough's champion walker of the Edwardian era

Remember C.W. Allen, the "pedestrian holder of the 2,000 miles road record" who saw a phantom airship over Kelmarsh? He turns out to have been quite a figure in his day: the newspapers were full of reports of his feats and appearances.

Here is an account of a visit he paid to Great Malvern in 1905, which was recycled by the Worcester News a century later:

How To Walk And The Boots To Wear was a headline in the Malvern Gazette 100 years ago.

It came as Mr C W Allen, the champion long-distance pedestrian of the world, gave an exhibition of his powers in Malvern.

"At six o'clock in the evening, he started from Mr Oliver's boot stores on the Promenade and walked along the Belle Vue Terrace, through the Wyche cutting, round the hills by West and North Malvern, down Trinity Bank to the Graham Road and up Church Street to the starting point," the paper reported.

"This walk, which is practically an afternoon's walk to an ordinary individual, and has plenty of difficult ascents, he accomplished in the marvellous time of 49 minutes, or at the rate of eight miles an hour.

"A considerable number of people watched him en-route and the critics had to admit that in spite of the rapidity with which he travelled, it was a fair and square walk with no suspicion of breaking into a run.

"Mr Allen wore a pair of Oliver's celebrated boots and stated that he never had any others to beat them as regards wear and ease and comfort."

But then Allen, whose forenames I have yet to discover, was a great one for endorsing things. He endorsed the tonic Phosferine tonic in the makers' advertisements, even when he had joined up as an air mechanic in the Royal Flying Corps during the first world war.

Another Phosferine advertisement gives Allen's home address: 43 Nithsdale Avenue, Market Harborough.

The illustration above is one of a number of postcards of Allen that the CardHawk site has sold in recent years. You will see that in this one he is endorsing Harboro Rubber Soles, which were made at the Dainite Mill in St Mary's Road by the Harborough Rubber Company.

Later. A reader has researched this (thank you!) and his full name was Charles William Allen. He was a commercial traveller working for a boot manufacturer, so he was a walking advertisement.

Allen was originally from Stroud. His first child was born in Market Harborough, but he had left the town before the 1911 census and was living on Jersey in 1921.

It occurs to me that he may have seen that airship because he was off his tits on Phosferine.

The Joy of Six 1299

Arthur Snell explains why Assad was so violent: "The implications of a small, historically marginal and theologically unorthodox group holding the reins of power are clear: from the start they have had a strong incentive to shore up their power-base through inter-marriage, self-enrichment and repression of the majority."

"A decade ago, liberals, liberaltarians and straight libertarians could readily enthuse about “liberation technologies” and Twitter revolutions in which nimble pro-democracy dissidents would use the Internet to out-maneuver sluggish governments. Technological innovation and liberal freedoms seemed to go hand in hand. Now they don’t. Authoritarian governments have turned out to be quite adept for the time being, not just at suppressing dissidence but at using these technologies for their own purposes." Henry Farrell analyses the changing politics of Silicon Valley.

Isabelle Roughol and John Elledge take us on a women's history tour along London’s Suffragette line: "In a tale as old as social progress itself, suffragists and suffragettes clashed with one another over issues of ideological purity and how to win over public opinion. As the suffragettes’ tactics got increasingly radical, 50,000 women marched on London’s streets in 1913 to say 'Not in our name!'"

"The sea has been pressing back into the boulder clay here for centuries, claiming churches, homes, villages and lives. Ten miles north of Withernsea, at Aldbrough, I saw a recently tarmacked road charging confidently out into thin air like something from a Road Runner cartoon." David Hancox writes about living on the fastest-eroding coastline in Europe.

"Her new home in Rotherfield, East Sussex had fifty acres and included a lake, topiary and an orangery. Lisa Marie cooked, gardened, created her own pub at the house where local friends such as Jeff Beck would pop by for a pint and a singalong." Jessica Olin reviews Lisa Marie Presley's posthumous memoir.

Charles Bramesco argues that David Lynch's Dune (1984) is due a re-evaluation.

Tracing the route of Butterley Tunnel on the Cromford Canal

The 3083-yard Butterley tunnel is the great obstacle to the full restoration on the Cromford Canal. It was condemned as beyond economic repair as long ago as 1909.

In this great video, Trekking Exploration - subscribe to his YouTube account at once - begins at Codnor Reservoir, the first of three that supplied water to the summit level of the Cromford Canal. He then visits the Eastern portal of Butterley Tunnel before following the length of it above ground to the Western portal. He ends at Hartshay Wharf near Ripley.

If you want to see what conditions are like beneath the ground, have a look at the Friends of Cromford Canal site, which has photographs from a 1979 inspection.

And the Wikipedia entry for Butterley Tunnel tells us something remarkable:

About 880 yards (800m) from the tunnel's western portal there is an underground wharf about 60 yards (55m) long with the tunnel here widened to about 16 feet (4.9m). 

One of the horizontal tunnels departing from the tunnel at this point used to run to the Butterley Company's Butterley Carr Pit which opened in 1812 and loaded its coal directly into narrow boats at the underground wharf. 

There were also vertical shafts from the wharf which allowed goods in tram boxes to be lowered directly from and lifted up to the Butterley Company's works (on the hill above the tunnel) to and from the underground wharf.

Vince Cable nails Labour's "big mistake" in opposition

The University of York student newspaper York Vision has an interview with the city's famous son Vince Cable.

Asked for his reaction to Rachel Reeves's budget, Vince says:

"It was necessary to have a substantial increase in taxation because public services are in a very poor state. I think people have to get used to the idea that if they want good public services, they have to pay for them. That means taxation. So, yes, I agree with that.

"I think the big negative thing, which is not about the budget itself, but the preparations. I think the Labour Party made a bad mistake in opposition, not being honest about the need to raise taxation substantially. And they should have said to people that you’re going to have to pay more VAT, more income tax.

"But as a result of not doing that, what they’ve got into looks a bit sneaky, and they’ve got into bad taxes. This national insurance for employers looks like a victimless tax but it’s actually going to hit consumers, it’s going to hit workers indirectly. It’s not the best way to raise taxation."

Asked what the Liberal Democrats should do to become the official Opposition in Parliament, Vince stressed the importance of Europe, local government and climate change:

"I think they need to be a bit more explicit about Europe and the commitment to Europe. I would be much more outspoken in saying Britain needs to have higher taxes for better public services, and I think particularly areas like education.

"I think the Lib Dems should be ... pushing very hard to get more funding into local government rather than central government, because ... councils are closer to the public. At the moment, they’re disempowered, and many of them are bankrupt, so I think reforming local government  would be a high priority."

And on electoral reform, he had no time for the argument that the rise of Reform should make Lib Dems reconsider their support for it:

"We do need electoral reform. The fact that you get more people from Reform is neither here nor there. They exist as a force. We’ve seen with Trump, we’ve seen in Germany that populist parties are very, by definition, very popular. Just sweeping them under a carpet and pretending that they don’t exist is the worst kind of response."

When I was a student at York in an earlier life, there was only one newspaper on campus, Nous. Judging by its website, it is still going strong.

Maria Jones from The Box of Delights would agree that Die Hard is a Christmas film

There must have been a time when arguing that Die Hard is a Christmas film, or that The Muppet Christmas Carol is the best filmed version of the book, was novel and interesting. That time ended some years ago.

But there is one character in John Masefield's The Box of Delights, a book that, like A Christmas Carol, encompasses the Christmas and pagan sides of the festival, who would certainly agree about Die Hard.

She is Maria Jones, who complains: 

"Christmas ought to be brought up to date. It ought to have gangsters and aeroplanes, and a lot of automatic pistols."

I took that quote from a good essay on The Box of Delights by Bob Fischer. In particular, he argues convincingly that if you read the first book about Kay Harker, The Midnight Folk, and then read the full original text of The Box of Delights, then the revelation that it was all a dream does not come as a great surprise.

A word too for the BBC radio adaptation of The Box of Delight that won my heart in the 1960s.

David Hemmings in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (BBC, 1980)

Made by the BBC in 1980, this is a superior telling of the tale. It features David Hemmings in the two title roles, with support from Lisa Harrow, Ian Bannen, Clive Swift, Toyah Wilcox and Diana Dors.

The change in Hemmings when he transitions from Jekyll to Hyde is a remarkable one. The baroque facial hair of a Victorian gentleman falls away, revealing the glamorous film star beneath. A few years later Hemmings was to look more like Jekyll than Hyde in real life, but in 1980 he was still recognisable as the lead in Blow-Up.

A problem with the story is that the revelation that Jekyll and Hyde are the same man was the climax of the original story, whereas that is now the one thing that everyone knows about it. So those who adapt it have to introduce a new ending. The one here, as Jekyll loses control of when he turns into Hyde and then of what he turns into, does not disgrace the original.

And, let's face it, any film with Hemmings in is worth a look.

The mysterious drones seen over New Jersey and the phantom airships of 1909

From the Guardian:

The mysterious reported sightings of drone clusters in the night skies over New Jersey and other parts of the US north-east has prompted frustrated outbursts from Congress members, triggering calls for a limited state of emergency to be declared over the region.

Jon Bramnick, a Republican state senator in New Jersey, has demanded a ban on all drones until the mystery is solved. ABC’s Action News reported that he called for a “limited state of emergency … until the public receives an explanation regarding these multiple sightings”.

Concern about unexplained drone sightings began in mid-November as isolated postings by local residents on social media. The issue has steadily risen up the political food chain, bursting this week on to the stage of state and federal authorities.

And you can see a report from yesterday's CBS Evening News above - note its use of that fashionable measure  of size, the small car.

People do see strange things when they look up, but maybe what they see depends on what they expect to see or are worried they might see.

I am reminded of the phantom airships seen over England in 1909:

The reporter failed to find the airship's base, but he found a good supply of fresh witnesses who were prepared to say they had seen it in the air. One of these was a Mr C.W. Allen, described as "the pedestrian holder of the 2,000 miles road record" who claimed he distinctly saw the craft whilst driving with two friends near the Northamptonshire town of Market Harborough on 5 May 1909:

"we had been for a night run, and when we were passing through the village of Kelmarsh, we heard a loud report in the air like the backfire of a motorcar. Then we heard distinctly from above our heads the 'tock-tock-tock' of a swiftly-running motor-engine, and we looked up. I was sitting on the front seat, next to the driver, and had a clear view of a dark shape looming up out of the night. 

It was an oblong airship, with lights in front and behind, flying swiftly through the air. It seemed some five or six hundred feet up, and must have been at least a hundred feet long, although owing to its altitude it looked smaller. The lights were not very bright, but we could distinctly see the torpedo-shape and what appeared to be men on the platform below. 

We slowed up our motorcar and stopped to watch it. The steady buzz of the engines could be heard through the still air, and we watched it under it passed out of sight in a northeasterly direction towards Peterborough."

Love is Enough: Ed Davey sings in Bath on Saturday

From Somerset Live:

The Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey is to perform Top 40 Christmas hits with Bath Philharmonia Young Carers’ Choir at a live concert in Bath. The choir is performing their Top 40 hit ‘Love is Enough’ featuring Sir Ed this Saturday (December 14) at The Bath Forum.

The concert will include The Snowman on the big screen with a live orchestra, while the MP for Kingston and Surbiton will narrate ‘The Night Before Christmas’ and sing the chart song. 

Written by six young carers and former young carers, the song ‘Love is Enough’ is a tribute to the caring responsibilities of young carers and the bond they share with the people they care for.

Ed Davey is quoted in the story:

"It was a joy to spend time with this amazing group of young carers, to see their incredible talents, energy and love. With the wonderful Bath Philharmonia, they have created something that I'm sure will strike a chord not only with other young carers - often invisible in our communities - but also with all carers and families. I can’t wait to perform it live to audiences in Bath."

If you can't make it to Bath on Saturday, you can stream or download Love is Enough.

At last! Proof that BBC East's Joint Account quiz existed

In a 2018 post on my three encounters with Glyn Worsnip, I wrote:

Move on to the summer of 1978 when I was about to go to university. My mother and I won BBC East’s quiz Joint Account, a show that is so obscure it is not on the BBC Genome site.

It's still not appeared on Genome, but I now have two pieces of evidence that Joint Account existed.

The first is that it's mention in the Independent's obituary of Worsnip. The second is this photograph of him, which someone sold on the French Amazon site a few years ago.

Its caption is in English and runs:

Glyn Worsnip plays Chairman and Bank Manager in BBC East's knock-out quiz series "Joint Account", broadcast on BBC East

This may be of more interest to the writer than the reader, but then I have reached an age when it's good to have your memories confirmed. Now I even fancy I can remember Worsnip dressing like that.

The Joy of Six 1298

"Starmer was attempting a card trick that mainstream political parties across the West have tried to play in recent years - defeat the hard-right by borrowing their talking points and framing, and then somehow prove that you are better able to deal with this problem than they are." Matt Carr has no confidence in Keir Starmer's attempt to meet the Reform challenge to Labour.

"Syrians are under no illusion that the future will be hard, complicated and may end up being disappointing and even dangerous. Please can we all do them the courtesy of wishing them well, and offering support if it is requested, rather than writing them off now before they’ve even finished freeing and identifying the prisoners from Assad’s concentration camps?" Jonathan Brown calls for optimism about Syria.

Christine Jardine argues that hate crime legislation is not the right way to tackle sexism: "Having once felt the hate crime route was best, I now find the counter argument compelling. It is not just the worst cases – physical and verbal attacks or domestic abuse – that are the end result of misogynistic behaviour. It is everywhere, every day in so many ways."

"Conspiracy theories are not the reason Trump was elected. They are more like the oil that makes the process smoother or faster. What is really being described in the election result is not an electorate declaring it believes every line about theories of secret power structures running the world, but it is an expression of deep disillusionment: how it is to feel disenfranchised, to be poor, that the future is bleaker than the past." Gabriel Gatehouse and Matthew Sweet discuss what America’s rampant conspiracy culture means for truth and democracy now that some of its leading proponents may soon be in office.

Henrietta Billings, director of SAVE Britain’s Heritage, on why the Oxford Street M&S demolition decision exposes a broken planning system and how we need urgent reform to safeguard heritage assets and reduce embodied carbon emissions.

Judit Polgar, the strongest ever woman chess player, calls for the abolition of separate titles (such as woman grandmaster), with lower qualifying standards, for women players. Though they were introduced to encourage women players, she believes they tend to limit their ambition.

Wild boars the size of a ‘small car’ advancing on Scottish city

The city in question is Inverness and the story has won the Telegraph our Headline of the Day Award.

After their meeting, one of the judges remarked that the obvious response to this advance is the rewilding of the Great Glen. Introduce apex predators that will prey on the wild boar and the problem will vanish.

Rediscovering the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway

This is a superior video from the Rediscovering Lost Railways YouTube account. It's notable not so much for the relics it finds as for the period video and stills that show the line in operation.

The Wisbech and Upwell Tramway, which opened in 1883, was almost six miles in length and ran between those two settlements. It gave up running passenger trains in 1927, but it continued carrying goods (mainly agricultural produce) until 1966.

The Rev. W. Awdry was vicar of Emneth near Wisbech between 1953 and 1965, and included two tramway engines in his books because he had seen them in operation on the Wisbech and Upwell.

You can read more about him and the tramway on the LNER site.

Victorian women in crinolines were the ultimate fashion victims

Embed from Getty Images

Content warning: This is a horrible passage of 19th-century history.

A number of factors combined in crinolines to make them a ridiculously dangerous death trap for anyone wearing them. During the peak of their popularity they killed at least 3000 people in the UK alone according to an 1860 article in the Lancet, and in 1864 a Bulgarian doctor reported that over the previous 14 years he believed that at least 39,927 women had died in crinoline fires.

This is from a horrifying article in the Christmas Fortean Times. Crinolines - stiff petticoats worn to hold out a skirt - were the height of fashion for women from the 1840s to the 1860s, and enjoyed intermittent revivals later in the century. Latterly, a metal frame replaced most of the petticoats.

They were such a fire hazard for two reasons. First, the skirt above became huge and unwieldy, so it was easy for a woman to brush against a fire or lighted candle. Second, the crinolines themselves were made of swathes of light, gauzy material, none of it treated to make it fire resistant.

The result is that the article, The Crinoline Inferno by Ian Simmons, is stuffed with barely credible horrors. One such runs:

In another incident in 1861 an entire corps de ballet - seven dancers in total, including the four English Gale sisters - died together when they tried to help each other after one dancer's costume ignited at the Continental Theatre in Philadelphia.

And that was nothing to the 126 people, mainly aristocratic ladies wearing highly flammable crinolines and corset, who died in a fire at the 1897 Bazaar de la Charité. Still less to the two or three thousand who died in the 1863 Church of the Company fire in Santiago.

Fashionable victims included:

the teenage Archduchess Mathilde of Austria, who died when she was surprised smoking by her father and hid the cigarette behind her back touching her dress as she did so and going up in flames instantly. 

Two illegitimate half-sisters of Oscar Wilde also died after crinoline fires - "both died a lingering death several days later". Little was said about their deaths as their father, a prominent Dublin doctor, did not want to draw attention to the family and its scandals.

As a result, the tale remained part of the secret folklore of Dublin for many years, growing in the telling to include a mysterious black-draped woman who regularly visited the girls' grave and. later. their father on his deathbed. It is not clear whether Oscar knew of his sisters' fate. or indeed their existence.

A further hazard was added when the colour Paris Green became fashionable in women's fashion. The die that produced it included arsenic, and women became ill through poisoning just from wearing this shade as a result.

Finally, the crinoline remained lethal even in the 20th century. In 1930 Nita Foy, a dancer appearing in a period film at Twickenham Studios, died in crinoline fire after her costume brushed against an electric fire in the dressing room of one of the actors. The room, says Matthew Sweet in his Shepperton Babylon, became a site of ghoulish pilgrimage.

Josh Babarinde makes the case for his Domestic Abuse Bill

The Liberal Democrat MP for Eastbourne, Josh Babarinde was on Good Morning earlier today to talk about the Domestic Abuse Bill he is looking to pilot through the Commons.

As he explains in the video, there is currently no separate offence of domestic abuse. This means that abusers are convicted of something like actual bodily harm, with the result that they cannot be excluded from early-release schemes and the like.

With the new clarity a separate offence would bring, survivors of domestic abuse could be better protected.

A website has been set up to support the campaign for an offence of domestic abuse. It includes a petition you can sign.

Jago Hazzard rides on London's cable car but no one else does

There's only one mode of public transport in London that's completely empty during the rush hour. Jago Hazzard has been to ride on it.

He finds it a fun day out, but little use as a form of public transport.

You can support Jago Hazzard's videos via his Patreon page.

Private Eye's Literary Review: "A 17-year-old writing in his public school's magazine 50 years ago"

As I usually point out before criticising Private Eye, to establish my credentials, I have bought every issue of the magazine since I went to university in York in October 1978. (Before that I couldn't, because no one stocked it in Market Harborough.)

The Eye's strength at the moment is its investigations. The humour, by contrast, increasingly feels like the product of a sausage machine: feed in the week's events, turn the handle and out it comes. And as for the columnists and regular features, they are often a source of weakness.

I've had a go at The Agri Brigade and Pseuds Corner in the past - the former, I will admit, has recently been very good on the NFU's (and the Lib Dems') campaign against restoring inheritance tax to any holding of farmland, no matter how large.

So let's turn to the Eye's Literary Review, which a couple of issues ago was on to something when, in the course of a review of Ali Smith's Gliff, it complained about the stereotyped and simplistic view of politics held by many literary types.

I love the coverage of culture in the London Review of Books, but I've not forgotten the regular contributor who complained in 2011 that George Osborne was trying to pay off the national debt in one parliament.

Literary Review complains of Sally Rooney and of a caricature Conservative minister in Alan Hollingshurst's Our Evenings. 

I've not read that book, but it's worth pointing out that Tory politicians have discovered the power of intentionally becoming a caricature of yourself. Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg are the obvious examples to cite, but the first Tory to employ the tactic was Ann Widdecombe.

My reason for writing this post is the sheer awfulness of the column's conclusion:

In fact, the orthodoxies of the modern leftie novel are becoming just the slightest bit tedious, and this reviewer put down Glyff with the thought that, really, voting Conservative may have something to be said for it.

It the author was aiming to hit the tone of a 17-year-old writing in his public school's magazine 50 years ago, then he scored a bull's eye. But why would you want to sound like that? And why should we value the opinions on literature of someone who does?

The Joy of Six 1297

Josh Self says the rise of Reform could consume Kemi Badenoch and then the Conservative Party: "As Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch has the privilege of interrogating the prime minister every Wednesday afternoon. And yet Farage can probably corral more support with a single TikTok (addressed to his one million followers) than Badenoch with her six scattergun PMQs. The bottom line is this: even before the English council elections, when Reform could evince serious strides, Farage is a far more visible (and effective) critic of the Labour government than Badenoch, the de jure opposition chief."

"Important issues are being obscured by the swirl of errors, confusions, and hyperbole which has reappeared around UK freeports and ‘charter cities’ or ‘states within a state’ – particularly on social media but also crossing over into the traditional media. Dispersing this fog is difficult because the claims made are convoluted, fragmented, hard to pin down, and difficult to disentangle from the occasional truth they contain." Chris Grey on the debate about freeports.

Teenagers are vaping. So what? asks Democracy Coma.

Happy birthday to Joan Armatrading, who has enjoyed an extraordinary, pioneering career as a Black British woman singer-songwriter. She recently talked to the Guardian.

Francis Young opens The Box of Delights by Philip W. Errington: "To this day, the Bishop of Tatchester’s rush to find his mitre and ensure that Tatchester Cathedral celebrates its 1000th Christmas is my iconic image of Midnight Mass, as the carol ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ fills Tewkesbury Abbey (the real Tatchester). It was not until years later, as a young teenager, that I read the novel by John Masefield on which the adaptation was based, and then I found an even richer source of fantasy and magic."

The Opinionated Reader enjoys Gloucestershire Folk Tales by Anthony Nanson: "Sky-ships are flying over Bristol, a pious nun becomes the innocent prey to a heathen, a mysterious woman haunts a village, requiring fresh flowers on her grave."

Kate Carr: Shy, Typically Alone or in Pairs

Kate Carr, a London-based sound artist, says her album A Field Guide to Phantasmic Birds includes "all the birds I never recorded, and some I did".

Antonio Poscic describes it as:

a phantasmagoric set of artificial field recordings created with bird callers, electronics, and manipulated birdsong. Despite its occasionally familiar sonic artefacts - a bird’s undulating chirrup, a frog’s nocturnal croak – the music feels alien, as if documented on an exoplanet.

And he says that the final section Shy, Typically Alone or in Pairs:

finds a sliver of optimism hidden somewhere deep, and dresses it around faint arps, concentric noises that spread like dulcimer hits, and beatific, ambient Americana evoking riffs. 

As whispers, cicada vibrations, and bittersweet amphibian squawks emerge from the forest, I can’t help but wonder if a machine will ever be able to imagine something so unusual yet sublime on its own.

How Generative AI imagines Freddie and Fiona and the Elves of Rockingham Forest

I was playing about with the free AI images that Canva offers and came up with these results for Freddie and Fiona and for the Elves of Rockingham Forest. Both are uncannily accurate - the elves are in Lord Bonkers' woods on the shore of Rutland Water, of course.

But I've used up all my free goes there now and can't find another free site that offers images of the same quality.

Finding our more about Frieda Harris and Aleister Crowley

"It's time to find out more about Frieda Harris," I wrote the other day of the woman who was the wife of one Liberal MP (Sir Percy Harris) and great grandmother of another (Matthew Taylor), an who helped fund the notorious Aleister Crowley.

A good place to starts is an article by Brianna Di Monda about Frieda and her partnership with Crowley published in Lapham's Quarterly.

She writes of Frieda's early life:

Growing up in a wealthy, middle-class family, Lady Frieda Harris was taught only the arts—drawing, music, dancing—and conversational French. Though women were benefiting from expanded opportunities in the late nineteenth century, Harris’ education prepared her only for a good marriage. It also likely readied her for a life of being a voracious autodidact. 

After she left school, her interest in mysticism—incited, perhaps, by her mother reading her light texts about Buddhism at a young age and her father’s membership in the United Grand Lodge of England (England’s governing Masonic lodge for the majority of Freemasons)—carried her far beyond her traditional schooling. She read widely about alternative belief systems and became involved in theosophy and, briefly, Christian Science.

Above all, Harris committed herself to painting, which she also used as a springboard for further spiritual involvement. As an artist, Harris exhibited her work in prominent London galleries. There are rumors that she was a co-mason, a form of Freemasonry that admits female members, for whom she painted surreal Masonic trestle boards, the graphic teaching devices of Freemasonry. Her 1926 illustrated book Winchelsea: A Legend—which chronicles Dionysus’ imagined adventures in East Sussex—also reflects her interest in classical mythology and mysticism.

And then of her marriage to Sir Percy:

When Frieda married Sir Percy Harris in 1913, her husband encouraged her continued artistic pursuits. “My wife is an artist and a good one,” he wrote in the postscript of his 1948 memoir, Forty Years In and Out of Parliament. “She takes her art seriously, in fact works at her painting seven days a week and generally twelve hours out of the twenty-four. When, however, critics discover she is my wife she is immediately written down as an amateur and accordingly disparaged.” 

Frieda in turn supported Percy’s ambitions in Parliament: she joined his election campaigns, entertained their guests, ran his household, and involved herself in politics as a militant suffragist while he advocated for progressive legislative reforms. Their marriage was built on friendship and mutual admiration, but their relationship barely survived the years Frieda threw herself into painting an improved tarot deck.

That tarot deck was painted for Crowley, whom she first met in 1936 - by then he looked nothing like the satyr in my earlier post. He proved a demanding client - you can read all about their collaboration in Di Monda's article.

Despite that:

The two remained devoted to each other until the end of Crowley’s life in 1947, and Harris was named a co-executor of his will. She hosted a wake in his honor at her home in London.

And we know that she helped fund Crowley's living expenses for a time, which is what occasioned my earlier post.

Di Monda says that by the time Crowley died, Frieda and Sir Percy maintained separate London residences, though they still socialised and took holidays together.

And finally:

After Percy’s death in 1952, Frieda moved to a houseboat in Srinagar, in Kashmir “in search of a God,” making a modest income from writing and artistic projects, such as ballet designs. In a 1958 letter to a friend, she wrote that she still longed for Crowley, “who was so damned clever and without limitations.” She died four years later.

As you would expect with someone who dealt with esoteric subjects, Frieda's art fetches high prizes - I rather covet her book on Winchelsea. But you can buy a pack of her Tarot cards for a reasonable price.

Armed with them, a headscarf and golden earrings, I shall set myself up as fortuneteller and tour the local village fetes:

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.