Tring Book Club - The Sealwoman's Gift

I had very mixed feelings about this book. I found the first third hard to get into, it just seemed to be all over the place. I know the author was trying to mix in some back story with the main narrative, but somehow this didn't work for me. I think if I ever read it again, it would make a lot more sense. However, as the book progresses it gets better and better. The last third is especially good.

We could have done with more about Algiers, but what we do get is quite atmospheric. The main character, Asta, is a tormented soul. She is one of the few Icelanders who do not embrace the culture of their new home. The contrast between Iceland and Algiers is well presented, especially in the last part of the book. The lifestyle, food and climate are all so different. There are very good reflections on how slaves accept their captors.

But the story is punctuated by too many Icelandic sagas. I thought they spoilt the book. This was a book club choice so it will be interesting to hear other views. (These were all very positive). 

Amy Macdonald at the Eventim Apollo

Three things about Amy. She's gone blonde, gone acoustic and still as brilliant as ever. Her "Woman of the World" tour kicked off last night at the Eventim Apollo, always in my heart as the Odeon Hammersmith. I saw her in 2017 at the Royal Albert Hall and before that in October 2010 at the Cambridge Corn Exchange. This time she has dumped the electric guitars and drums and instead we have a five piece backing band playing acoustic guitars, piano, an upright double bass, violin and cello.

I think at the start it was hard to get the sound balance right. We could hardly hear the string section, and then the bass became too loud. But once the sound mixer and our ears had become attuned, the music suited most of Amy's songs. All nineteen of them are on setlist.fm. Obviously, the uptempo tracks receive the best reaction: Mr Rock and Roll, Dream On and the very last song Poison Prince. Then there were a couple of songs where she plays guitar with just the piano and a violin, Don't Tell Me That It's Over being the best. Here she really shines. The voice as great as ever.

The song before the break (as it always is) was What Happiness Means to Me. Amy sings this slow emotional ballad for around three minutes and then (surprisingly and unusually) she left the stage. But we are left with the band and after the last lyrics fades I still heard that wonderful intro to the three minutes of the fast instrumental at the end. This is the ultimate clap along song with that fantastic Celtic beat. And this strange acoustic band took us there, the sound they created rocked the Apollo. Magic.

Just a word about the journey (for future reference). Going by car, the M40/A40 was busy but kept moving, so I was parking at Westfield White City in an hour and a quarter. Somehow I entered the wrong car park and ended in the one for John Lewis. But having parked close to lift lobby 9, I was soon at the exit and surprisingly close to Wood Lane Underground. A short wait for a train (plenty of seats) and three stops to Hammersmith Broadway, very close to the Apollo. A quick bite in Pret a Manger and still made it for the support. Coming home it was even easier, one hour fifteen minutes door to door. Expensive parking, but safe, quiet and so close to the A40. Perfect.

Milton Keynes Half Marathon 2019

It was a good day for running. Chilly and windy but not freezing or blowing a gale. The morning had actually started with clear blue skies but it had clouded over by the time we started at 10.45 am.

Although my time of  2:12:35 was the slowest of the four half marathons I have run (not counting the crazy weather of last year's race) it  was under the 2:15 I had set myself as a target. I know I'm getting slower as I get older. This year I found that last few miles were really hard, and I was probably more tired at the end than any previous race. But I managed to run the whole way and so exorcised last year's debacle. If this was to be my last half marathon, I was more than pleased with the result.

I checked my watch at 10 miles and my time was 1:39:45, so under 10 minutes per mile, and that was fine. But the last three miles is mainly uphill with that short steep climb in Campbell Park. Alison was there at the end to help me stagger back to the car. We had a very nice lunch at Carluccio's in the shopping centre before heading home.

The Aftermath, Cold Pursuit and Border

Despite mainly poor reviews, I found The Aftermath to be a well written drama with fine performances from the three leads. Adapted from the book by Rhidian Brook, it has been confidently directed by James Kent. The film looks great and the costumes and production design are top class. Keira Knightly, Jason Clark and Alexander Skarsgard do well to keep our interest despite the glumness of their characters. A surprisingly good story with a decent finale.

There are so many characters packed into Cold Pursuit, most of whom end up dead. Fortunately this is actually a comedy action thriller so the deaths are incidental. It was very strange that the lead character, a snow plough driver seeking revenge played by Liam Neeson, seems to disappear over half way through. It is left to the two sets of gangsters to sort it out. How come the main villain is more interested in the healthy eating habits of his son? Strange.

Even more strange, but in a highly intelligent way, is the Swedish film Border. A haunting, unsettling and weird fantasy, we have to wait until the unlovely (on the outside) Tina meets someone of a similar look to find out who she really is. Part horror, part police drama, part romance, this brilliantly unusual movie is like nothing I have seen before. It unfolds slowly, the dialogue is limited so the subtitles are never intrusive. The two leads, played by Eva Melander and Eero Milanof, are outstanding. Made up in world class beating prosthetics, they bring sensitive performances that demonstrate the true nature of being outsiders. It was truly amazing to compare their roles with their normal personalities on a YouTube interview. Director Ali Abbasi has performed wonders, so much is unsaid but so clear. Even Ann Petren in a minor role as the police chief is great, her treatment of Tina as an equal contrasts with the bullying and abuse Tina must have suffered in the past.What could have a much too creepy film turned out to be a classic.

Shylock Is My Name, The Burgess Boys and With Your Crooked Heart

One of the few books I could not finish was "J" by Howard Jacobson, a hardback I found in a second hand bookshop. So I only read "Shylock" as it was in the Hogarth Shakespeare series. This time I persevered, but only just. I found there was far too much long and tedious soul searching for my liking. There are the occasional witty remarks that mostly relies on word reversals: "a dope smoking media don who disapproved of dope and media". Yes, this is as good as it gets. The main character, Simon Strulovich, meets Shylock in a cemetery and takes him home. It reminded me (too much) of my favourite play, Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land". There is some interesting dialogue between them, but the fact that on nearly every page there is something about being Jewish just seems too much. Later circumcision becomes the heart of the story and this is when the plot becomes more interesting. But not enough to encourage me to read anything else by the author. 

Elizabeth Strout is truly amazing . She does not seem to indulge in fancy structures or dazzling prose, just concise, pure and consistently readable writing. Welcome back Shirley Falls. This fictitious town in Maine has provided the setting for four of her six novels. This time the "action" alternates with New York, to where the brothers Jim and Bob Burgess have escaped their home town. Leaving behind Bob's twin sister Susan, they are soon beckoned back by one crazy act by her son Zach that needs their legal expertise. Typical of this writer, we have a family in crisis. The alienation of the middle aged siblings are contrasted with the close family relationships of the local Somali population. And so are the startling differences between Shirley Falls and New York. Bob and Susan are both divorced, the former's relationship with his ex-wife Pam seems better than many marriages. They inhabit one amazing scene at the boathouse bar in Central Park. After the trials and tribulations of most of this glorious book, the last 70 pages are some of the best I have ever read. Truly emotional and uplifting without being sentimental, this is Strout in her prime, having written this book five years after her Pulitzer prizewinning "Olive Kitteridge".

I'm a huge admirer of Helen Dunmore. Of her fifteen novels, this is the twelfth I have read and the only one that I found disappointing. I never thought I would ever say that. Whilst her prose is as fine and intelligent as ever, her examination of the relationship that Louise has with two brothers falls flat. The author's experimentation with writing some chapters in the second person singular occur far too often. Maggie O'Farrell just uses it once in her novel "This Must Be The Place" and that worked fine. I didn't mind the switching from first to third person, but using the second person was too distracting. And it could not hide the lack of plot and drama. 

In My Life - A Music Memoir by Alan Johnson

Having been impressed by the first part of Alan Johnson's autobiography "This Boy", that was a choice for my book club, I could not resist placing his music memoir at the top of my Christmas list. I was not disappointed.

Where to start but at the end. Alan Johnson concludes this superb book with a remark that " The evolution of pop music is not a linear progression, or the replacement of one kind of music with another, but an accumulation of all the talent, experimentation and influences that have contributed to it since it's inception. Sometimes it feels more circular than linear". He talks about the new music he listens to now ( none of which I like): "I'm introduced to amazing new artists on a regular basis. But the genesis of all of them, every single one, lies back in the 1950's and 1960's, with Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and of course, The Beatles." And obviously Lonnie Donegan, as he is first artist he mentions on page 9. For me the circular feeling does start with Lonnie and, for the moment, ends with Freya Ridings. 

This book has brought back so many memories. Each chapter heading is a year and a song, starting in 1957 ("True Love") and finishing in 1982 ("Allentown"). Partly autobiographical and partly an account of how the music of that year is important to him. For me, there were just so many parallels with my musical history. Not just starting with Lonnie, but that we were both at the same Chuck Berry concert in 1964. Johnson is an amazing writer. At one point there is a forensic examination of family relationships that is truly exceptional. 

When the book starts in 1957, Alan is coming on seven years old and living in North Kensington, not far from where we lived in West Kensington (not the posh part) from 1953 to 1959. In 1957 I was twelve. The chapter for 1958 describes the young Alan being dispatched to Kensington Gardens for the day. We may have brushed past each other as this was a regular haunt for us in the school holidays. This was place I heard Paul Anka's Diana being played in the sunshine on a battery operated record player. 

The first two artists singled out by the author in 1958 are Lonnie Donegan and Cliff Richard. As for Lonnie, my first musical hero, I have to go back to 1956 when, at eleven years old, I was mesmerised by the sound of Rock Island Line as I was allowed to play my uncle's 78 rpm record time after time. The following story comes from an earlier post in 2007.

"When we lived in London in the 1950's, I can remember my brother and I being put in the care of the guard on the train from St Pancras to Rotherham to visit our grandmother (Nanan) in the summer holidays. She used to meet us at the station and take us to the semi on Wordsworth Drive. Still living at home with her were three uncles, all in their twenties. The youngest was Geoff and he was the one who owned "Rock Island Line" by Lonnie Donegan on a single 78 (rpm). During the day we were allowed to play this and an LP of Bill Haley's "Rock around the Clock". It was the single that I thought was magic, and it was played time and time again. It certainly has influenced my musical taste to this day. When Johnny Walker included requests in his Drivetime show on Radio 2, the four he played of mine started with "Rock Island Line".

The same post starts with an extract from John Peel's autobiography "Margrave of the Marshes": In the words of Chapter Three, John recalls "I allowed my life to be transformed by hearing Lonnie Donegan". And the first part of Chapter Four is a tribute to this event.

Unfortunately,  I never saw Lonnie live as did Alan, but my mother did take us to see the "Six-Five Special" movie  in 1958 where the highlight was, of course, Lonnie.
As for Cliff, well, I might be embarrassed to relate that the first two singles bought jointly with my brother John, were Living Doll and Travellin' Light in 1959, followed closely by Lonnie's The Battle of New Orleans, by which time we had left London and arrived in Braintree in Essex. We still only possessed a wind-up gramophone that only played 78's.

However, by the following year (1960) I came into possession of a tiny second hand Pye record player that would play LP's. Nothing as good as Alan's Dansette.  I had to wait until my paper round in 1962 brought in enough cash ( and a loan) to buy a brand new Bush portable. All those LP's from over the years are stacked in the cupboard under the stairs.

I was sixteen in 1961. The author's title for this year is "Poetry in Motion". This was one of the songs played regularly on Radio Luxembourg, and I was writing down lists of all the hits that were played on the various shows. Jack Jackson's Jukebox was my favourite, playing only the first minute or so of each record so cramming in as many as possible into the time allowed. Each show was promoted by one record label, Jackson's was Decca. In 1958 I was able to see a few of those artists at the Royal Albert Hall - Ricky Nelson, Dell Shannon and Bobby Vee were there. 

The author talks about his time at the all boys Sloane Grammar School. Up until 1959, I attended St Clement Danes Grammar School for Boys. I think we played Sloane at football, but I didn't even make the house team. When Johnson mentions the next door Carlyle Grammar School for Girls, it reminded me of our next door Burlington Grammar School for Girls. We only came into contact with them on the trolley bus home to Shepherds Bush and the normal bus back down Holland Road.

In 1962, Johnson describes the release of Love Me Do by The Beatles. Now my brother John played the harmonica which was also the lead instrument on the record. Whether it was this that led him to pronounce that this group would be huge, I don't know. But he was right. At my year's leaving party at Braintree County High School (mixed) we danced to The Beatles first LP Please Please Me, and my favourite I Saw Her Standing There.

In 1963 I was back in London, with my first job at George Wimpey's offices in Hammersmith. My digs were just over the bridge in Barnes, so I could walk to work passing the  Hammersmith Odeon on my way. Licensing hours were strange in those days. We would finish our drinks in the pub on Castelnau in Barnes and walk over Hammersmith Bridge to a pub on the other side of river for an extra half hour! Towards the end of 1963, I can vividly remember, like the author, buying the With The Beatles LP ( not from the station arcade store, but one at the top of King Street) the week it was released. I must have worn out the needle on my Bush record player as I played it over and over again.

The Hammersmith Odeon, now the Eventim Appolo. It was here that Alan and I were in the same audience in 1964 for the Chuck Berry concert. And we were both in the circle. I managed to recently buy the programme for that night. As well as that never to be forgotten pre-release performance of House of the Rising Sun"  by The Animals, I was also impressed with Carl Perkins, the composer of Blue Suede Shoes. But it was Chuck we had all come to see. It was at the Hammersmith Odeon that I went to see other concerts. In 2010 I posted:

When I left school, I lived in digs in Riverside Gardens in Barnes, just over the bridge from Hammersmith. So my walk to George Wimpey's offices on Hammersmith Grove took me close to the Odeon every day. So I was lucky to be able to see what were the forthcoming attractions. So from 1963 I went to see Tony Bennett, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Duke Ellington and Woody Herman and the Herd. All fantastic big band performances.

These were followed by a blues concert with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, and in May 1964 by the best rock and roll show ever with Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins. They were supported by new British groups such as The Nashville Teens (Tobacco Road had not yet entered the charts), The Swinging Blue Jeans and The Animals. Wikipedia confirms they played their version of House of the Rising Sun on their tour with Chuck Berry in May 1964 but did not release a recording until a month later. I can still remember what a great job they did with Alan Price on keyboards.

The most disappointing concert I have ever attended was around this time. Louis Armstrong was a particular favourite, having bought his Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings from 1927 and 1928. So Louis to me was a trumpeter, not a singer. But for the whole concert I wait in vain for a trumpet solo. All the other members of his band played solos, but not Louis. Maybe he was not up to it, but he played with the band, and any short burst on his own would have sufficed.

The last of my 60's memories at the Odeon is the premiere of Thunderball in December 1965. On the day of its release, it was decided to show it at 1 minute past midnight. I must admit that I might have nodded off during the final long underwater sequence, but the music will always wake you up. The one show I missed was the Beatles. They played 38 shows over 21 nights in late 64/early 65. I had heard that you couldn't hear the music for the screaming and that put me off. But I really should have gone.

When I think about A Hard Day's Night, the film The Beatles made in 1964, I always remember visiting the man who wrote the screenplay (Alun Owen) the previous year. In the 1950's when we lived on Napier Road in Kensington, Alun Owen lived with his family two doors down from our flat. His wife was very friendly with Mum so when, in 1963, I went to live in London, I was encouraged to call in on the Owens who now lived, I think, in Notting Hill, which I did. If only I had kept in contact, I might have found my way to visiting a set on the movie and seen our heroes close up.

In 1965, I moved into an attic room in Airedale Avenue in Chiswick with a my work friend Bob Owen. We only had the smallest black and white TV. The only thing I remember watching was the Bob Dylan solo concert at the BBC. It must have been good for me to remember it fifty odd years later.

Alan talks about being in Trafalgar Square the night England won the World Cup in 1966. I was trying to get to the Royal Garden Hotel on Kensington High Street to see if the team would come out on a balcony. However, we were too late. Having been to the final (and all the England games at Wembley with the season ticket that Ray and I were able to buy), it was later in the evening before we reached the hotel. I believe they did appear on the balcony as soon as they arrived there after the game. The restoration of Alan's Hofner Verithin guitar reminded me that the packet of ticket stubs I kept from the World Cup went missing and have never turned up. Still having the programmes is just not the same.

It was in July 1968 that Alan Johnson married Judy at Hammersmith Register Office, mine was the following month at Kingston Register Office. It is about this time that Alan and I go our separate ways as far as geography and music are concerned. Although he is not afraid to mention (as I would) the fact that Gary Glitter records would be played at parties in the early seventies. And we both bought Elton John and Eagles LP's. But I relied on Terry Wogan in that decade as I drove many miles in those early mornings listening to Billy Joel and many more. I think it was Terry who enthused about Nanci Griffith and Mary Chapin Carpenter, and I think I have nearly all their albums, and seen them both live. It is that folk and alt country influenced popular music (not country and western) that I feel has closed the circle with Lonnie. I seem to have turned into a clone of Jackson Brodie, Kate Atkinson's private detective, listening to Laura Cantrell, Patty Griffin, Eliza Gilkyson, Lucinda Williams, Sarah McLachlan and First Aid Kit (the last two also seen live).

There is one poignant piece in this book that is the chapter on 1980 "In My Life". (One of my favourite Beatles' tacks). Johnson remembers where he was when he heard the news about the murder of John Lennon. I was in the car on my way to an industrial building my company had completed and I was meeting the architect. The radio was playing Lennon tracks back to back. The Beatles had always been huge for us both.

Fabulous February

A little late with this post, but here we are. It all started around the 12th February and the weather just got milder and milder all the way through to the end of the month, reaching 18C on the 25th and 26th. So I was able to get out in the garden much earlier than normal. The lawns received their first cut on the 25th.

The crocuses are now over but the daffodils are still going strong.

This year there have been far more catkins on the corylus contorta and much larger in size.

Already, today, there are flowers on the hyacinth, forsythia and flowering currant. March promises to be equally good in the garden, if not the weather.