Thursday, 18 March 2010

Women with whips




It was an exciting race. Two horses fighting it out over the fences to the narrow margin of victory at the Cheltenham races yesterday.

The two jockeys too - fought it out with even more determination and vigour.

What got everyone talking was that these weren't ordinary male jockeys, they were both women, friends, room-mates and the sisters of champion male jockey brothers.

Oh yes, we found out, women can do it too.

I have never really understood why women couldn't have done it more often actually. Won at the races I mean. After-all, those little guys with their traditional diminutive shape are hardly any more muscular or strong than the equivalent woman. Look at Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet. Oh sorry, that was a film wasn't it!

Maybe men have been better at it, we think, because men are so much more aggressive and competitive than women. Yeah, right!

I remember the bad old days of militant sexism when some women used to think that the World would be so much more peaceful and gentle if it was run by women. Hehe.....those were the days before a string of formidable women got their hands on the reins of power:




Margaret Thatcher, love her or hate her, was the strongest and most aggressive British Prime Minister in living memory.



Madame Mau too, didn't flinch when it came to making political decisions involving power

and Elena Ceauscescu, the wife of the former Romanian dictator, made Lady Macbeth look like a Sunday School teacher.

It was all sexist rubbish to think that women somehow had the gentle gene.

So why all the surprize about those women jockeys Katie Walsh and Nina Carberry?

It wasn't just that they won of course, well Katie won and Nina was the just first of the losers, but that they won by whipping their horses excessively. They have both been banned from racing for a few days but the thought is out and it won't go away. Women are just as nasty as men when it comes to wanting to win.



Katie Walsh whip hand in the air in her moment of glory

Nina Carberry is not shy with that whip either

So Katie and Nina, put away those whips, OK? It would have been a glorious win if you hadn't shown your vicious streaks. Oh well, if you ever have to give up horse racing, there are other openings for ladies with whips and you would do very well there too, I am sure.

Wednesday, 17 March 2010

On-line banking is fun


On-line banking is fun.

It is what we are all told that we should do.

It saves paper.

It is easy.

It saves time.

It saves money.

Well Bankers' money.....do we want to save them money?

I have an on-line account.

It saves paper.

I don't get paper bank statements any more.

Last week the internet went down and wiped all my passwords.

Today I wanted to access my on-line account.

I hadn't got the password.

I didn't write down the membership number, I know that is stupid but we are talking saving paper here.

No problem says the blurb on my on-line banking home page.

All I have to do is log in a few details:

Name, date of birth and bank account details.

Sorry, says the next page. We do not recognise you.

I try a few more times.

Sorry, we do not recognise you.

So I ring the helpline.

I give them my name, date of birth and bank details.

Can we also have the details of two direct debits from your account please?

Umm...no. I would need to access my on-line account to give you that.

Don't you have a paper statement?

No, on-line banking saves paper.

Well there is nothing we can do if you can't give us those direct debit details.

Anger management comes into play.

The nice man at the call centre agrees that this is a stupid system but there is nothing else he can do.

Have a nice day.

I have to go visit my local branch with a passport and one other proof of identity document.

On-line banking is fun.

It is easy.

It saves paper.

It saves time.

Not.

Tuesday, 16 March 2010

Putting my feet up but not hanging up my boots like David Beckham



I am putting my feet up today. After the weekend of thinking about the consequences of my visit to the hospital on Friday, I have had to let a number of thoughts float freely round the majority of my brain which is, luckily, undamaged.

I am a bit like David Beckham, I guess.

The poor guy looks as if he has reached the end of the road in his football playing career after the Achilles Tendon injury that he sustained on Sunday in what might well be his last match.



I know what you feel like matey! If, as seems likely, he is not going to ever be fit enough to play international football again then he will have to fall back on his other interests.....fashion, body art, English sport and his family.



He seems to be in good spirits judging by the photograph of him on his way to what will be unpleasant surgery. Well, he may well prove to be an example to us all beyond the football pitch.

The most photographed, and thus most famous footballer of our times, has been much ridiculed for his off the pitch life-style. Now we all know what he looks like in his underpants thanks to all those giant hoardings which marked the pinnacle of his modeling career but let's not let that detract from his superlative skills with the ball. He is basically a nice guy from what we can tell even if his lovely wife Victoria has led him astray as far as hair cuts, sarongs, designer clothes and body tattoos are concerned. Victoria, or Posh Spice as she is called, is, in case you don't know, his famously skinny wife with her silly fashions, her charmed singing career as the only non-vocalist in a sensationally successful girl band and her ability to walk on very high heels and to pout even when she is happy. Whatever she may look like in the papers - a freak - she and David seem very happy together so let's not knock them today when they pick up the pieces of his career.

I suspect we will not see the end of Mr Beckham. He should use his quiet charm in the interests of sport and I am sure that he will continue to make a real impact in the future.

I am in the same situation. Well, I don't play football, I have no tattoos, I have never worn a sarong, I don't spend much time with Posh Spice, in fact I have only seen Victoria Beckham once in the flesh, as they say, and thought she was ill as she looked so pathetically thin. In fact David and I couldn't be more different but I am still empathising with him today.

I have enjoyed practising martial arts, especially the more vigorous side of Kung Fu and, like David Beckham, I have been told that my illness really does make it unwise for me to carry on with it.

Luckily, also like David, I have other things to do with my life. Not only can I concentrate on the soft style tai chi form but I have my writing, my friends, my family and my life.

So, even though my neurologist scared the hell out of me on Friday over having slightly raised blood pressure and white matter in my cerebral blood vessels, and my series of weird left-sided ailments, I am feeling calm about reclaiming my life from illness without risking another brain haemorrhage or even a stroke. I have grown up a bit about it I think.

I am not going to worry about anything today - not about that dull sensation in my head, or my double vision, or the nerve pain in my arms or even the frustration of having to wait another year for my next brain scan. As I say, I am putting my feet up and relaxing just like David Beckham.

So that's it folks! No more writing today.........

If you want more from this site today then look up the Photography chapter above, I have just published some of my photographs of my home town, Lewes.

Monday, 15 March 2010

Planting seeds of hope after seeing the neurologist


I had to look for reasons to be cheerful over the weekend after spending some time on Thursday at the Eye Hospital and on Friday with my neurologist.

Luckily the Golden Croci have decided to steal centre stage in my garden and the sun has reciprocated by shining its hopeful Spring light into my life bringing my garden into bloom.

I have to wait now to find out if I am going to need eye surgery because of my dodgy double vision which has probably been caused by muscular damage to my eyes after my brain haemorrhage. My neurologist too got concerned about how much left-sided damage I have suffered since my brain injury and has asked my GP to monitor my blood pressure over the next year before I have my next brain scan.

So another year of waiting to get better. How do you keep up your hope for so long, I wondered.

Trying out my new seed propagator seemed a good enough way of dealing with anxiety. Why not plant the seeds of tomorrow today and plan some good things ahead like the eight different varieties of half-hardy annuals and the various hot and sweet chili peppers as well as this year's tomato crop.

I loved the basic science involved in gardening and, by the time all those seeds were in their neat little compartments, labeled and water within the propagator by my kitchen sink, I was feeling positively cheerful. I am even getting near to planting my seeded potatoes which are sprouting energetically in the kitchen too. The fruits of the Earth are well worth hanging around for.

Sunday, 14 March 2010

Unpublished Material - Chapter Forty-three

Forty-three

“I think a drink is called for, don’t you, dear?” Ivy said as soon as they came into her small sitting room. Stephen’s first impression was that the tiny apartment stank - an unpleasant combination of damp and urine. The unattractive and ill-matching furniture reflected the taste of a mean landlord rather than an incompetent homemaker - a job lot from a junk shop, the upholstery barely hygienic, everything about twenty years old, Stephen thought and the 1940’s was not a good decade for interior design he thought. It was either trying too hard to be Fascist with its brutalised art deco or it got lost trying just as hard not to look like it. Age had withered everything here including the tenant. Ivy had done very little to add her personality to the place beyond littering it with her detritus - empty bottles, plates with the fossilised remains of meals, improbably large greying undergarments in piles on the floor and, in multitudes, framed black and white theatrical photographs from the 1920s and 30s - hanging on the wall or standing on every flat space; Stephen assumed that Ivy did not realize the value of the pewter art deco frames. Many of the photographs had the elaborate signatures of long forgotten variety artists or provincial matinee idols. One face reoccurred in a number of the pictures - a platinum blond woman in full stage make-up. In one, she presented her coyly dimpled smile through a misty gauze to the camera. In another she was laughing with a frozen pose of stagey artificiality. In each she represented the eternally worldly woman, a man’s woman, an idealised barmaid, milkmaid, tart - man’s real best friend. Draped either in white fox fur, shimmering chiffon or body clinging satin, she was unmistakably Ivy Cooper.

“I was a bit of alright then, wasn’t I? That was a lovely dress. Pink lace, hand made, from Belgium. Oh well! The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away - the mean old sod!”
They sat down in the two old armchairs with their tumblers of whisky and Stephen offered her a cigarette.
“Thanks, love, I’m dying for one. They’re the only pleasures an old bird like me’s got left - fags and booze. Though I can still appreciate a good-looking young man like you even though they don’t come my way very much any more. But don’t worry, darling, I only look these days, Heaven help me!”
Stephen was holding the whisky to his nose to lessen the room’s odour of decay. As he sat back in the chair, his body began to itch and he tried to ignore the probable cause.
“I thought you might be one of those solicitors at first. You know the ones who come from nowhere to tell you you’ve inherited a fortune from a relation you didn’t know you had. Not that you look very like a solicitor with your dandy looks and your lovely long hair! And I don’t suppose there’ll be any money from Austin - that was a bad penny if ever there was one.”
“That’s what I want to find out.”
“What? If he had any money?”
“No, I meant him being a bad penny as you call him.”
“So you want all the sordid details? It’s a dirty job digging around in the past, dear. You dig up some pretty rotten things - and you might put your hand on something really nasty like my old man Austin. “
She took another drink and settled into her chair pulling at her skirt that had stretched tight over her thighs. Involuntarily, Stephen noticed the large knotted garters of grimy elastic that held up her stockings.
“Why did you marry him?” he asked averting his gaze to his whiskey.
“It’s a long story, dear, but the main reason was that he was lovely looking. Another things was he had a way with him. His eyes stripped the clothes off your back the moment you walked into the room. He knew what women wanted, you know, in the bedroom and he let you know that the moment he met you. I was successful, pretty attractive as you can see, and I could have had anyone I wanted - and that’s mostly what I did! I had all of them, dear, don’t you worry! But, Austin, he was a beast, a devil really but God was he a lovely man!”
She laughed coarsely at the memory. There was no doubt about her thoughts as she gulped her drink.
“I loved him, dear. It’s a simple as that. I made a bloody fool of myself and then he left me - the bastard.”
“Did he leave you for Emilia Jeffries?”
“So you know about her, do you?”
“Yes, we’ve met.”
“Jesus God! You’re serious about all this aren’t you! Emilia Jeffries! Posh little Miss Jeffries. Yes, he left me for her. She was a pretty little thing, I’ll admit that. She doted on him, little fool that she was. She never stopped chasing him even after I warned her about him. Told her what he was like, about his little habits if you know what I mean. But she would hear none of it - all she could see were the stars. Her ears were full of heavenly choirs but he was made of earthier stuff, I can tell you. Actually, when he was gone, I missed him. We saw eye to eye, you see. We knew that this is a rum old World and that there aren’t any pots of gold at the end of any rainbows. I don’t think Emilia saw that.”
“She told me that they became lovers when he was still living at Frampton and that they split up in London. She didn’t tell me about you though.” Stephen could feel the story was spinning out of control again.
“I bet she didn’t! I bet she didn’t tell you one half of the truth either. Cunning little vixen! They split up all right but that wasn’t the end of it. Not by a long chalk. Yes they were lovers in the good old days. The days of yore! When they could both afford to be all lardy-da But Austin, the dirty little bugger, messed things up didn’t he? Got chucked out of the stately pile and ended up with nothing. He’d been getting up to a bit of ow’s yer father with his mother as far as I could tell – can you believe that!. Emilia and he fell out but he carried on falling. All the way. That’s where I came in. Enter a showgirl!”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it was quite straight forward. I was doing very nicely thank you. I was doing a musical in the West End; I forget which one, probably something by Ivor Novello, that old poof. I was on top of the World, topped up with champagne and looking for fun. I walked right into him. Down and out, dirty, ragged with nowhere to go but he was still something. He had what it takes. You could say that I saw his potential and couldn’t resist it!”
“So what happened?”
“Come on, love! I bedded him - after scrubbing him up a bit first! And then I wedded him! We spent loads of money, partied a lot, drank a lot and then little Miss Perfect came back on the scene and he buggered off. There you have it. Big-hearted Ivy lost her boy. ”
She took another swig of whisky gulping it noisily.
“Where did they go?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Abroad somewhere I heard. I never found out - I didn’t much care to be honest. There were plenty more fish in the sea so I wasn’t going to waste my time with the ones that got away. No, Austin and Emilia went off into the sunset and I got on with my life. And a funny old life it’s been too!”
She patted him on the knee using him as a support to lever herself up.
“I’ll get us a couple of drinks and then I’ll show you Austin Randolph.”

From the recesses of a drawer, she produced a black covered photograph album.
Stephen moved his chair closer to her’s as she flipped through the pages that documented her life as Mrs. Austin Randolph. Typical of their day, the photographs were mostly of groups at special occasions. One showed Austin and Ivy pulling jokey faces to camera, he playing the he-man and she the vamp. Others had them in evening finery with friends at some evening diner table or in swimsuits lounging in the sun, cocktails in hand. They could have been stills from a film - Ivy and Austin were the perfect glamorous couple, daringly modern in the high fashion of the day and confidently extrovert in front of the camera. There was no denying his charismatic appeal - he was the tall dark man of Hollywood dreams. No longer the young aristocrat of Mrs. Irving’s picture, with marriage to Ivy he had become a star.
“What do you know about the British Union of Fascists?” he asked, getting to the point, he hoped, at last.
“Oh, so you know about the Brown Shirts too. I told him he was a silly bugger getting involved but he wouldn’t listen, he enjoyed the excitement, the idiot.”
“Why did he join? Was he involved in politics?”
“No it was just a bit of a game, like a told you. He said they were going to get the communists but I don’t think he really cared who it was. He was after a fight, that’s what turned him on you know and they loved having him. They liked him for being posh and, of course, he could cut a dash. He was always good at that.”
“I thought they were against the Jews.”
“Oh I don’t think so. No more than a lot of people were in those days, dear. I knew a lot of nice Jew boys before the War, there have always been a lot of them in the entertainment business. I nearly married one once, God he was handsome too, I was a fool not to, and I can tell you there was nothing wrong with him. Austin thought he waas being smart saying bad things about the Jews but I don’t think he meant it, not really. I don’t think he really cared one way or the other about anyone.”
The more familiar he became through the pages of Ivy’s album, the less Stephen understood Austin Randolph and the less he liked him. By now, he knew the face well but the man was receding further and further from his understanding. He declined a third whiskey and persuaded Ivy to lend him the album.
“So you’ll put pictures of me into your book. That’s a good boy! The World should not forget old Ivy Cooper. I tell you, luvvie, on a good day I was up there with the best of them.”
Surreptitiously, with an uncertain sense of its symbolism, Stephen slipped a ten-pound note, Austin Randolph’s money, on to the sideboard and left Ivy to finish the bottle. He walked home feeling disturbed, challenged and depressed. He had got so near to giving up the project and then this happened. He had been drawn to Ivy against his will and now he had found out that Emilia had lied to him. He telephoned her from the phone box on the corner of his road; it took a long time to answer.
“I’m sorry, Stephen but this is a bad time. I’m desperately packing and I’m off to France tomorrow for four weeks holiday. It’s the perk of being a school ma’am. Call me when I get back”.
Charming, as always, she managed to cut him off before he could even mention Ivy’s name and he knew her well enough to recognise the anxiety in her voice.

To be continued next Saturday.......

Saturday, 13 March 2010

Unpublished Material - Chapter Forty-two


Forty-Two


That’s right, my friend. Dig out the dirt. I swam in it, wallowed in it, luxuriated in it and satiated myself in it. Dig it out – real dirt. Then see what it’s like. Pull it out, get your hands dirty then expose it to the sun. When all the filth cracks and blisters, remember me.

The afternoon light shed an elegiac glow over the town warning of autumn. It cast its nostalgic spell over Stephen as he made his way to St. Pius’ Church Hall on the sleepiest side of town, tucked away behind the shops in a tiny road that you would only go down if you wanted to visit the hall. Stephen suspected that not many people would feel that particular urge. He had walked down busy streets of afternoon shoppers and come across the odd band of young hippies – now, it seemed like they were members of his own secret society. Today though they seemed frail and vulnerable as the edge went off the Summer sun - he hoped that they would survive the first frost. In the heat of the afternoon, winter was still a remote threat but the seasonal clock had moved on and Stephen felt an involuntary shudder. It could have been the light, the temperature or a feeling of guilt. He had not told Dys about the letter and she had not asked about it.

Rows of wooden chairs had been prepared for the lecture in the dingy church hall but only the front two rows were occupied - and even then, not all the places were taken. The high-ceilinged Edwardian building was no longer the respectable meeting place for St. Pius’ pious congregation. The church, one of many surplus to requirement Church of England buildings was long demolished. The land had been sold to the council to build flats for the elderly and the hall was now used for various ill-attended community projects aimed at occupying the minds of local impoverished pensioners. Crumbling plaster and descending damp patches broke up the monotony of the dirty magnolia walls. At one end there was a stage with faded blue velvet curtains forming a backdrop to the afternoon’s main attraction. An elderly man, in a grey tweed suit, was standing stage left with a portable gramophone on a table. He was tremblingly manipulating the stylus onto a vinyl record whilst, centre stage, isolated on a shabby leather chair, sat, Stephen assumed, Ivy Cooper, once a glamorous singing star, now an elderly plump woman with thin hennaed hair and a fleshy rouged face enlivened by an inaccurately applied smudge of scarlet on her lips. Her beauty had faded in a similar way to St. Pius’ Church Hall Stephen thought, unkindly. Both had survived beyond their glory days to become crumbling symbols of their own obsolescence. Whilst the gramophone produced a faint recording of Ivy singing The Desert Song. Stephen guessed it was one of her own performances by the way she sat smiling at the ceiling whilst some of the audience sang along with it in quivering voices. Stephen, unsure of why he was there, sat at the back and watched.

The music finished, there was a clatter of applause, the old man lifted the needle, dropped it back onto the vinyl, retrieved it a second time and walked carefully back to a seat at the side of the stage. Ivy waited for him to go with an instinct born of a lifetime’s experience then rose to her feet. She wore a tight floral dress, mostly orange chrysanthemums on a red background, that had been designed for a younger and shapelier Ivy Cooper but now just emphasised the rolls of fat that were trying to escape such cruel confinement. Lighting a cigarette and inhaling it, she allowed a theatrical pause before allowing her girlish, unnaturally high-pitched voice to project around the hall. As she spoke, her bright red mouth was set in a perpetually sweet smile - a technique acquired by all young soubrettes in the Thirties.
“For our last record, I thought I would keep my favourite.” She made a simpering giggle and let the hoped for murmur of excitement settle in the audience.
“I have the fondest of memories for the show I did with Mr. Ivor Novello many years ago now. He was such an amusing man and so generous too. He could be so romantic and he was always quick to praise any little quality that his co-stars might possess. I found him quite delightful to work with and whenever I hear this song, I am reminded of dear Ivor and the smell of the theatre in those days when people truly appreciated style and romance.”
There was a ripple of agreement from the audience who, somewhat surprisingly, all appeared to have memories, accurate or not, of more glamorous days.
“Unfortunately, we never did record this lovely duet together but, if you are ready Mr. Snewin, here is an equally dear friend, Mr Al Bowly in Ivor’s role. We recorded this not long before Al was tragically killed during the London Blitz so many years ago now.”

Throwing a thespian look at the nervous Mr. Snewin, she sat down and instantly, as if the chair had magic powers, her girlishness vanished. The music’s youthful romanticism had survived but it was made poignant by the elderly recording and the ancient gramophone player. Ivy slumped in her chair puffing on her cigarette – she was an old woman again.

“It was nice wasn’t it?” was the much repeated comment as the old ladies made their way out but enjoyment did not show on their faces.
“The music was lovely,” they all agreed.
They had all come back from a happier time - back to their aches and pains and the memories of their losses. Their woolly hats and tweed coats warned Stephen that not everyone had been celebrating a Summer of Love. He was aware too that they edged away from him; a chasm had opened between the generations and as they inched past him, some of them whispered their disapproval of his appearance: “disgusting…” a gentle old lady said too loudly once she was out in the street. “Long hair like that and nothing on his feet but those sandals… They don’t know how to behave, young people these days. He shouldn’t have been allowed in”.

Ivy waited for them to leave before making her own way down the hall. She was not firm on her feet and it was some time before she reached Stephen.
“Miss Cooper?
“Yes, dear” came a deep voice unrecognisable from the stage persona but with an accent matured in thespian extravagance.
“My name’s Stephen Dearsley. I wonder if you remember someone called Austin Randolph?”
“Jesus be praised!” she exclaimed with a course laugh. “Talk about grave-digging! And why should a young man like you be asking me questions like that?”
He told her and she guffawed in disbelief.
“And what the Hell has he done to warrant a book, I should like to know? Apart from marrying me that is! He disappeared with the bath water years ago, darling. If you want to know all about him, ask away, I could tell you loads.”
“Could we go somewhere to discuss it?”
He tried to sound earnest and interested but he heard Mark’s disapproving voice scoffing at his persistence with the past. He was giving way to bourgeois values, helping to perpetuate a past that should be giving way to the Age of Aquarius. He had tried to stop caring about Austin Randolph and the odd incoherent story that he was trying to construct. Ivy Cooper had been sent to tempt him back but his curiosity still mingled with guilt as he thought of his friends. In this desolate place, in the battle for Stephen’s mind, Austin Randolph reasserted his power.
“If you let me get my money for this little bit of business, you can take me home” she said. “Have you got a car?”
“No, I don’t drive.”
“Well, we’ll have to take the bus then - I have a little flat quite near to here so we can go there if you want. I’m quite full of curiosity to find out what the old bugger’s been up to!”

Back on the trail, Stephen used Austin’s money to buy two single bus fares, one with an old age pensioner’s pass, and a small bottle of whisky from Ivy’s local off licence.
“Usual brand, madam?” said the shop assistant, a middle aged man with a bored expression, passing her the cheapest bottle. When Stephen paid, the man rolled his eyes wearily.

To be continued tomorrow...

Friday, 12 March 2010

Reinventing Beethoven's Fifth


If you are ever misguided enough to think that Beethoven's Fifth is too familiar and hackneyed a work to get you all excited any more then, I have some advice for you.


I have been listening to the excellent Naxos recordings of Liszt's piano transcriptions, by the pianist Konstantin Scherbakov, of all the Beethoven symphonies and, if I wore socks very often, they would have been blown off by the hurricane combination that is Beethoven-Liszt.




Beethoven was a virtuoso pianist who could also play all 48 of Bach's Preludes and Fugues from memory right until the end of his life even though he was nearly stone deaf. He composed at the piano in his scruffy upstairs apartment in Vienna and I have often imagined what that must have sounded like if you happened to be lucky/unlucky enough to be his downstairs neighbour.


Franz Liszt wasn't just a piano virtuoso, he was the greatest pianist of the Nineteenth Century and, quite possibly, the greatest of all time. He reinvented the sound of the piano and pushed piano technique to an extreme that has really never been surpassed. He was also, and I love him for this, not at all frightened of extremes of vulgarity....it is one of the things that makes his music so exciting.

So the combination of the two giants of the piano is, well, revelatory. Liszt doesn't turn the symphonies into new Beethoven piano sonatas, he reinvents the orchestra on the keyboard and brings Beethoven's daring harmonies crashing into our ears in a way that probably replicates the exciting novelty of Beethoven's works to his first audiences. These works, written in 1865, the year I am concentrating on at the moment, will wake you up to Beethoven's never boring symphonies.

I have come across another genius associated with these works only recently. The legendary Canadian pianist Glenn Gould made an acoustically challenged but sensationally exciting recording of the Beethoven-Liszt 5th and, it captures the essence of what I find exciting about these transcriptions. It is all about blood and thunder and passion.

The terrible recording adds to the thrill.....I almost wish it was done on a totally clapped out piano.....because through it, you really can imagine yourself as Beethoven's downstairs neighbour, hearing music being composed in a surge of power which would change the musical world forever.




Here is Gould playing the first movement - hold onto your socks if you want to.