Leonard Cohen: Tower of Song

In 2016 Leonard Cohen wrote a final letter to his friend and muse Marianne Ihlen, who was dying:

Well Marianne it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.

And you know that I’ve always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don’t need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road.

Cohen died later that year.

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Britain's need to attract large flows of foreign capital to keep it functioning limits are freedom of movement in foreign and industrial policy, argues Duncan Weldon.

Stephen Evans says the demonisation of Louis Smith for 'mocking Islam' is illustrative of a troubling return of the concept of blasphemy.

Nottingham's parking levy has paid for two new tram lines and railway and bus improvements, reports Charlie Sorrel.

The Dulwich Raider celebrates the micropub revolution.

"Brilliant and sometimes maddening, “Jerusalem” is Alan Moore’s monumentally ambitious attempt to save his hometown, Northampton, England - not to rescue it from the slow economic catastrophe that’s been gnawing at it for centuries, but to save it “the way that you save ships in bottles,” by preserving its contours and details in art." Douglas Wolk reviews the novel.

"The big change is the proximity to death ... I am a tidy kind of guy. I like to tie up the strings if I can. If I can’t, also, that’s O.K. But my natural thrust is to finish things that I’ve begun." David Remnick interviews Leonard Cohen, who has a new album coming out at the age of 82.

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Peter Carrol reviews Ed Balls' memoirs.

"Lib Dem Glee Club is without a doubt, the weirdest event in British politics." Mikey Smith of the Daily Mirror ventures into the belly of the beast.

Roger Hermiston says the Liberal Democrats ignore one of their more recent heroes: Sir Archibald Sinclair. "Ultimately his legacy might well be, like Clegg, that he led the Liberals on a downward electoral path, but his is a compelling story, and there is much to chew over and admire in his years at the top of British political life."

Pop culture has worn out Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, explains Nick Murray.

Mark Cunliffe remembers Thick as Thieves, a 1974 TV sit com starring Bob Hoskins and John Thaw.

"There was always a hint of the West Country lumberjack to Trescothick's batting, defined by hefty forearms, scythes through the off side and a stubborn reticence to move his feet. But his runs underpinned England's progress to their 2005 summit." Tim Wigmore celebrates Marcus Trescothick.

The coming civil war in the Conservative Party

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No one but a fool would try to forecast political events in Britain at the moment, so I am willing to give it a go.

There will be no coronation for the new Conservative leader. Two names will be put to the party's leadership. Those names will be Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom.

May will win the ballot, but it will be no walkover - say 56 to 44 per cent.

That will not be the end to the Tories' troubles but the start of them.

Because they have no clear vision of what Brexit will be like, the Leavers are bound to be disappointed.

Britain's bosses will not suddenly grasp opportunities to trade with the world and bring in a new era of prosperity. If they were minded to do that, there was nothing about British membership of the European Union that stopped them.

Errand boys are unlikely to start whistling in the street again either.

And if the Leavers are disappointed they will conclude their referendum has been betrayed and look for scapegoats.

Chief among them will be the leader of their party. Theresa May, they will rage, was a Remainer. How can they ever trust her?

Arron Banks, the sugar daddy of Ukip, claimed on Twitter this morning that the Leave.eu campaign he funded is followed by more than 20 per cent of the Tory membership.

Certainly, from the limited sample of Conservative activists I follow on Twitter, I get the impression that the party's grassroots are closer to Nigel Farage than they are to Cameron or May.

It was notable this morning that Leadsom refused to rule out having Farage on her Brexit negotiating team. She know what her potential supporters want.

So what I see is Theresa May as leader of a party where a large proportion of the membership increasingly regard her as a traitor and owe semi-allegiance to a grouping that overlaps with the party.

For a model of how this works, have a look at the Labour Party and Momentum.

In the words of Leonard Cohen: "I have seen the future, brother, and it is murder."

Leonard Cohen: The Future

A song to suit these troubled times. It is the title track from Leonard Cohen's 1992 album The Future.

Leonard Cohen: Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye

It seems odd to be wishing a 1960s musician a happy 80th birthday, but we had better get used to it. Even Steve Winwood is 66 these days.

Here is Leonard Cohen at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 and he is just as cool today as he was then.

I have chosen two other Leonard Cohen songs as Sunday music videos - I must be grown up:

• Famous Blue Raincoat
• Closing Time

Leonard Cohen: Closing Time

What is it about Canadian singer-songwriters?

Two weeks ago I wanted a song about disillusionment and found it natural to choose Joni Mitchell. Today I wanted something to express the sense that we are living through the decline of the West, and it seems equally natural to choose Leonard Cohen.

"Closing Time" comes from Cohen's 1992 album The Future, which was the one that led me to discover his work. Ostensibly the lyrics are about some hellhole of a bar, but I have always read it as being about something deeper than that - closing time in the gardens of the West or something like that.

Anyway, Cohen seems remarkably cheerful at the prospect in this live performance - much more cheerful than when he sings about love.

Leonard Cohen: Famous Blue Raincoat

Leonard Cohen has been in the newspapers this week because of the release of his album Old Ideas. His later style may not be to everyone's taste: "Catch Leonard Cohen's UK tour before his voice drops outside the range of human hearing," as someone said when he released The Future in 1992.

Come to that, Cohen's earlier work wasn't to everyone's taste either, but I find this wonderfully bleak.

More about Leonard Cohen on his official website.

Noel Harrison: The Windmills of Your Mind

Which singer from the 1960s competed for Britain in two Winter Olympics?

The answer is Noel Harrison, who was part of the skiing team at Oslo in 1952 and Cortina d'Ampezzo (Italy) in 1956.

He is best known for this song, which was used on the soundtrack of the original version of The Thomas Crown Affair in 1968. Written by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman and Michel Legrand, it won the Oscar for the best original song that year.

Harrison specialised in the songs of people like Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour - he had a hit in the USA with Aznavour's A Young Girl - and Leonard Cohen. He also enjoyed some success in America as an actor, with a leading role in the spin-off The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. This article gives a good picture of his career.

Noel Harrison is still performing today at the age of 75. His accent, both now and in his heyday, is an interesting study - public school leavened with notes of Anthony Newley cockney.

And, of course, Harrison is famous for being his father's son. He is the son of Rex Harrison by Colette Thomas, the first of his six wives. Rex Harrison won the best song Oscar the year before Noel with "Talk to the Animals" from Doctor Doolittle and a very different singing style.

Rex Harrison's other wives included the actresses Kay Kendall and Rachel Roberts. Another of them, born Elizabeth Rees-Williams (Katherine Parr to his Henry VIII) has had four husbands. Her first was Richard Harris and she is now married to Jonathan Aitken.

Her father David Rees-Williams, later Baron Ogmore, was a minister under Attlee, but went on to join the Liberal Party. He was its president in 1963-4.

You see how it all fits together?

Search of the Day

Late yesterday evening someone from Liverpool Googled:

rutland water leonard cohen

k.d. lang: Fallen

k.d. lang's 2004 Hymns of the 49th Parallel is an album of songs by fellow Canadians. As you would expect, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen are all represented.

But one of the highlights is this song by the lesser-known Ron Sexsmith.

There is no video of lang performing, I am afraid: just this slide show. And I hate to think what New Labour would make of a lyric like:

You opened your arms like a school door to summer days.

Joni Mitchell: Carey

I don't know what it is about Canadian singers of the 1960s, but it was when I found I had bought CDs by both Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell that I decided I must be a grown up.

In particular it was when I had bought Mitchell's masterpiece, the album Blue, from which this song comes.

And if you are a real Joni Mitchell fan you will also want to see this clip of her singing as Joni Anderson on TV in 1965.