Tim Booth and Angelo Badalamenti: I Believe

One of the more unlikely musical collaborations of the 1990s was that between Tim Booth and Angelo Badalamenti.

Booth from the bad James (via Shrewsbury School and the drama department at Manchester University) was part of the Madchester scene: Badalamenti was a composer best known for his work on David Lynch's films.

A James fansite tells the story of their collaboration:

Prior to 1990. Booth and Badalamenti had never heard of each other. That year, Booth fell in love with Julee Cruise's remarkable album of dream-songs, Floating Into the Night (music by Badalamenti and lyrics by Lynch) and was delighted to be asked, by the producer of Channel 4's Friday Night at the Dome, to choose a musician from anywhere in the world with whom he'd like to collaborate. 

For over a year the two men attempted to meet, with no joy, until a Paul McCartney recording session brought Badalamenti over to London on Concorde (the only way he'll cross the Atlantic). That night, James played at the venue formerly known as the Town & Country Club in London's Kentish Town. 

So this is the kid who's been leaving crazy messages on my answerphone, thought Angelo Badalamenti when they met backstage. 

Wow, he looks like a New York taxi driver, thought Tim Booth.

And adds in some enticing musical trivia:

In the year of Booth's birth, Badalamenti was teaching music and english in a New York school. He moved briefly to Woldingham in Surrey; began to write pop tunes; was told by Joe Meek that he had a glorious singing voice; went back to Brooklyn; penned hits for Melba Moore, Nancy Wilson and Nina Simone; scored dozens of movie soundtracks under the name Andy Badale; and wrote the superlative music for David Lynch's Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and most famously of all, Twin Peaks.

This performance is from a Jools Holland show, with the rest of James also playing. But on the LP the guitar was played by Bernard Butler from Suede.

Six of the Best 523

"Quick question: Which of the two Liberal Democrat leadership candidates was a member of the SDP? The correct answer is, of course, Norman Lamb." Nick Barlow shows that The Economist does not understand the Liberal Democrats.

Matthew Green reviews "The 20% strategy: building a core vote for the Liberal Democrats" by David Howarth, and Mark Pack.

John Sides tells the real story about how data-driven campaigns target voters.

The government's latest plans are sucking the life out of higher education, says Joanna Williams.

"If you thought that Harvey Nichols or Topshop were the epitome of a London fashion department store, it’s time to re-introduce you to Big Biba, a fallen icon of the Swinging Sixties that redefined the High Street shopping experience…" Inge Oosterhoff introduces us to "a Willy Wonka factory for fashion".

Curious British Telly remembers Fairly Secret Army.

Eynsham Cricket Club stands on the Cameron/Osborne fault

I like to think Eynsham's ground looks like this

David Cameron is a patrician Conservative from a land-owning and banking background. Like most such politicians he is a pragmatist and not greatly interested in ideas for their own sake.

He is on record as saying that he wanted to be prime minister "because I think I'd be rather good at it". You sense he went into politics, like many sons of the gentry, to (as they would put it) stop Labour ruining everything.

George Osborne is a different animal: urban (he went to St Pauls' rather than Cameron's Eton) and from a more nakedly commercial background.

He is also intensely interested in ideas and in free-market economics in particular.

So far what has been remarkable about Cameron and Osborne is the way they have kept together - the relationship of Labour's equivalent, Blair and Brown, soon foundered on the latter's thwarted ambition.

But there are potential fault lines between Cameron and Osborne, as an otherwise inconsequential story in the Telegraph shows:

David Cameron’s attempt to save a local cricket club from folding because of an unexpected tax bill has been stumped by his own Chancellor George Osborne. 

Eynsham Cricket Club in Mr Cameron’s Witney constituency has been fighting for months against a decision by HM Revenue and Customs to saddle it with a £34,000 VAT bill. 

The bill is due after the club raised £170,000 to pay for a new club house after it was burned down in 2012 in an arson attack. 

The cricket club, which has just 25 adult members and 20 juniors aged five to 65, taking in £2,300 a year in annual subscriptions, is warning that it will have to close if the bill is enforced ... 

Mr Cameron then raised it with Mr Osborne, who investigated but found nothing could be done. 

In a letter from his House of Commons office, Mr Cameron told the club on March 17: 

“I have raised this with the Chancellor and we have looked very carefully at what can be done. 

"I am afraid it is not promising."

This is a neat parable. The pragmatic Cameron, has a good local grandee wants to help his local cricket club, but the more theoretical Osborne tells him that nothing can be done.

Note too that this incident features Cameron as the supplicant and Osborne as the one who makes the decision.

That may be a neat metaphor for what has happened in the Cameron-Osborne relationship.

Cameron's attempt to give his beliefs shape - The Big Society - failed. In fact it would be more accurate to say that it was not even tried.

Today it is Osborne ideas that define the Conservative Party. How happy Cameron is with this remains to be seen - particularly if the polls suggest those ideas are not going down well with the public.

In the mean time, keep any eye on Eynsham Cricket Club. It may be the field where this battle is lost and won.

The Great Central generator house, Leicester

This, a final trophy from my visit to Leicester Central on Saturday, is the Great Central generator house. It stands across the road from the back of the station, on the corner of Jarvis Street and Alexander Street.

Except that Alexander Street isn't there any more. A little googling shows it once had a pub and a chapel, but today it has been completely cleared for redevelopment.

Christine Hamilton: MPs’ wives should behave with dignity

Many thanks to La Hamilton for providing us with our Quotation of the Week.

When Tim Farron fought Hilary Armstrong and Theresa May

Many thanks to Nick Forbes for tweeting this newspaper cutting from the 1992 general election campaign in Weardale.

Will relaxing planning controls really mean more houses are built?

Kibworth Harcourt windmill

Planning controls are to be relaxed because the government believes that will seem more houses built.

Its reason for wanting to see more built is odd - "productivity" - but will this move work?

Last summer I blogged about Harborough District Council's request for a meeting with house builders to ask if they could build more quickly. The council was concerned that it would not meet government targets.

This week its planning committee gave outline permission for new housing development on open land outside Kibworth Harcourt despite vocal opposition.

Perhaps Harborough is not typical of the rest of the country, but nothing I have read recently has convinced me that it is local council that are holding up the building of more houses.

Shropshire from the air

The good people at Virtual Shropshire are now licensed to offer commercial drone photography and video services.

Which may mean we can look forward to more footage like this.

The tessellated Roman pavement under Leicester Central

This doorway across one of the arches beneath Leicester Central station may not look much, but their is an exciting story behind it.

Railway Archive tells that story:

The Blackfriars tessellated Roman pavement was believed to have been constructed between the years 70 and 85 AD., during the period of rule under the Governor, Julius Agricola. It remained hidden until 1832 when it was uncovered in the basement of a house at 53 Jewry Wall Street. 

This house was later demolished to make way for the Great Central Railway's Leicester Central station, but a special chamber was built around the mosaic (beneath the station) to protect it and provide public access. It survived like this until the late 1970's when the mosaic was removed to the nearby Jewry Wall Museum.

It's an extraordinary thought that it was possible to view the pavement beneath Leicester Central for a decade after the station had closed. And this was the doorway to its chamber.

The photo below shows the Jewry Wall Museum, where you can see the pavement today. It is taken through an arch of the Jewry Wall - the second largest surviving piece of Roman civilian building in Britain.

Today came news that the city council is to buy the former Vaughan College, which stands next to the museum.

The Leicester Mercury quotes Sir Peter Soulsby:

"Vaughan College is an excellent example of a building of its time, and is one of the very few city buildings from the 1960s to be listed. 

"By bringing it into the city council's ownership, we will be able to think creatively about the entire building and look at the full potential of this site. 

"It also gives us an opportunity to refresh our Jewry Wall museum, which – with its Roman masonry, mosaics and wall plasters – reflects such an important part of Leicester's history."

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"I’d definitely recommend the experience to new members, even if you aren’t sure whether you align yourself with the SLF ... It’s a great way to understand what’s important to different people within the Lib Dems and to benefit from the wisdom and experience of people who have been a force for positive, liberal change in society through their activism and campaigning. " Tom King enjoyed attending the Social Liberal Forum Conference.

Peter Black says universities must justify a situation where more than 70 per cent of graduates are now leaving university with a first or upper second class degree.

Oliver Burkeman curses the fashion for iced coffee.

London Life with Bradshaw's Hand Book follows the Ravensbourne River from Lewisham to Lower Sydenham.

"In Vermont, any road that was ever officially entered into a town’s record books remains legally recognized, indefinitely. It doesn’t matter if the road has not been travelled in two hundred years, or if it was never travelled at all, or if it was merely surveyed and never actually built." Geoff Manaugh on the lost roads of one American state.

Abandoned Britain visits Leicester's former Abbey Motor Hotel.

Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice

I seem to be keener on choice than many Liberal Democrats, but I enjoyed this heretical view from the psychologist Barry Schwartz.

Where to see The Lone Pine Club by Alice Bush

I have blogged more than once about the Pentabus Rural Theatre Company's new play inspired by the Lone Pine stories of Malcolm Saville - see my recent post with their promotional video, for instance.

The dates and venues for the performances of The Lone Pine Club by Alice Bush have now been announced:

18-26 July - Carding Mill Valley, Church Stretton, Shropshire

30 July - 2 August - Sheffield Park and Garden, Sheffield Park, Uckfield, East Sussex

6-9 August - Buckland Abbey, Garden and Estate, Yelverton, Devon

13-16 August - Sheringham Park, Upper Sheringham, Norfolk

20-23 August - Wallington, Cambo (near Morpeth) Northumberland

For further details, including information on how to book tickets, see the Pentabus website.

What was good about George Osborne's budget

The first unfettered Conservative budget for 18 years contained all the meanness towards the young, poor and disabled that you would expect.

But there was one initiative that I welcomed.

The move to cut public spending on tax credits while obliging employers to pay higher wages is surely right.

Tax credits are a way of subsiding bad employers from the public purse and are a move towards the intermeshing of the power of the state and the power of capital that Belloc warned about in The Servile State.

It may well be that some poor people will be worse off as a result of these changes - it is a Tory budget, after all - but the direction in which it is taking public policy is the right one.

The next Labour prime minister is not in this leadership election

View image | gettyimages.com

Ed Miliband's approach to the last five years reminded me of Neil Kinnock's failure in the 1980s. Both thought that constantly reminding the voters how selfish Conservatives would be enough for Labour to win.

Yes, the Tories are extraordinarily selfish. The problem that Labour faces is that many voters agree with this analysis but still vote Conservative anyway.

In part this is because we are all selfish to some degree, but it also has a lot to do with Labour's inability to convince voters that they are competent to run the country.

It follows that in order to win Labour need to do something more than attack the Tories: they need to sound like a government in waiting.

Note that this does not necessarily mean sounding more right wing: it just means sounding different and more competent than they do at the moment.

The problem for Labour is that the candidates who have something to say - Liz Kendall and Jeremy Corbyn - do not expect to win. That is why they can say what they really think.

The two front-runners, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper, are so anxious about alienating different constituencies (the press, party members, the wider public) that they find it hard to say anything at all.

Mary Creagh and her short-lived candidacy gave the clearest example of this. Her replies to Justin Webb's questions were so convoluted that he had to summarise them for her.

For this reason I suspect that the next Labour prime minister is not taking part in this election. I also suspect that his name is Dan Jarvis.

Return to All Saints, Leicester

I went back to All Saints in Leicester on the way to the old Leicester Central station.

I first photographed it and the old brewery next door that stood next to it six summers ago.

The big change is that the brewery has gone. As is the way with inconvenient buildings, it fell victim to arsonists and was demolished. Its owners were fined for lack of care after a prosecution last year.

The church looked well in the sunshine, but the land between it and the city centre is bare and calling to developers.

The BFI's Britain on Film project

Launched today, the British Film Institutes's 'Britain on Film' project has made thousands of archive films available to play online.

If you are in the United Kingdom you can search and enjoy free access to films and TV that represent the area where you live, grew up or went to school.

You can't embed the videos, but if you click on the still above you will be taken to one of Market Harborough Urban District Council's 'Public Welcome to Service Men', which was held on the town's Square on Sunday 17 August 1919.

Cats, cakes and coffee at Stoneygate Shops

Exciting news from the Mercury: Leicester's first cat cafe will open in Francis Street, Stoneygate, next month.

Read more on the cafe's website Cats, Cakes and Coffee.

What remains of Leicester Central

Inspired by a newspaper report that it may be converted to a hotel, I visited Leicester Central yesterday.

This was the city's station on the Great Central line to Marylebone. It opened in 1899 and closed in 1969, having for the last three years been an unstaffed halt on the diesel multiple unit service from Rugby to Nottingham Arkwright Street. It must have been an eerie place to catch a train in those days.

The main building survives, though minus its clock tower, and is now home to a number of car repair businesses. (I did ask before taking a picture inside.)

Go round to the other side of the line and you will find similar businesses occupying many of the arches of the vast viaduct on which Leicester Central stood.

Up above at platform level, the northern half of the site is occupied by light industrial units and the southern half by a public car park. The most substantial remaining structure is the former parcels office, with its exotic gables.

Fragments of some platforms remain - I think the ones shown here were the southern bay platforms. There are similar remains at the northern end of the site, and the lady in the final picture is walking along what would have been the up main line.

All in all, a surprising amount of Leicester Central remains and you can find it almost in the shadow of the city's Highcross Centre.

Val Doonican: Elusive Butterfly

One by one, they are leaving.

The other day I posted an England team photograph from the 1977 Ashes series. Only afterwards did I notice that three of them (Bob Woolmer, Graham Roope, Tony Greig) have already died.

And, because my musical heart is in the Sixties, this Sunday video slot could easily become an obituary feature. So I shall take care that it does not.

But Val Doonican is worth noticing for two reasons.

First, because younger generations will have no idea how popular a figure he was in his heyday. The Val Doonican Music Show ran on BBC1 for more than 20 years. And it was the characteristically named LP Val Doonican Rocks, But Gently that knocked Sergeant Pepper off the top of the album charts.

Second, because this is one of the first singles I remember - a cover of the American version by the song's writer Bob Lind, it reached no. 5 in 1966. I can recall being a little disturbed by the idea of someone outside my window when I woke up.

Listening to it today it is a good song, but far less rich and strange than it did in my six-year-old imagination. And Doonican seems unsure whether to be American or Irish.

Leicester Central station to become a hotel?

Leicester used to have two mainline railway station. The Midland station, formerly known as Leicester London Road, is still in use. The second , Leicester Central on the old Great Central line, closed in 1969.

On Wednesday the Leicester Mercury carried this news:

Leicester's run-down Great Central railway station could be converted into a 100-bedroom boutique hotel as part of multi-million pound proposals to regenerate a neglected corner of the city. 

Developer Charles Street Buildings (CSB) owns the station complex near Highcross which was abandoned by rail bosses in 1969. 

It is currently used as industrial units but CSB is looking to remove part of the viaduct, in Great Central Street and create shops, cafes and restaurants in the remaining railway arches.

And on Friday a follow-up report talked to some of the people using the station buildings today.

All of which made me go and have a look at the old station this afternoon.

I am too knackered to write up my discoveries this evening, but I thought you might enjoy this terracotta sign from the site.

You can see it, along with some long-vanished trams, in one of the photographs accompanying the Mercury's second report.