Across the pond

One of the several things which has kept me away from blogging recently is the return of my daughter and her family from a month in the US. They were staying with Alix Berlin, an old friend of mine in Boulder, Colorado, as well as touring in a gigantic camper van They report that everyone they met in Boulder was hot for Obama. Hence the cap they brought back for me.

They also brought me an American ranger denim shirt, lined to withstand the cold desert nights. I like to think it is the kind of thing Sarah Palin wears when she goes out hunting moose.

I shall be resuming my blogging on the US election and commenting on the collapse of American consumer capitalism after I have blogged on one or two local events I have witnessed.

Although Humphrey Lytttelton died a few months ago, aged 85, his music making lives on live, as well as on cds. On Thursday night I went to a tribute concert organised by the Friends of the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead by the Humphrey Lyttelton Band, which is still playing the kind of music he loved. For the last several years Lyttelton has done an annual charity concert at the Royal Free. I have been to all of them, since I have been a fan of Lyttelton’s since the 1950s when I used to go to 100 Oxford Street.

Last year’s concert was the best of the series. Humph, on the trumpet, was joined then, on the clarinet, by Wally Fawkes, who he had first played with in 1947. These two young whipper snappers both went on to start their own bands, but they remained firm friends. And last year Wally came out of retirement to play again with his mate of the 1940s. On Thursday night, Wally came out of retirement yet again to join them. Although he is only a year or so younger than Humph, he still has enough breath to play a strong clarinet.

On Thursday night, the number which moved me most, was Trouble in Mind, which was one of Humph’s favourites. It gave him an opportunity to play his virtuoso trumpet solo. This year Wally Fawkes played the opening bars on the clarinet. He then gestured in the piano bit by Ted Beament. Fawkes, like Lyttelton, is a tall commanding prescence. He does not have to shout to lead a band. And he then moved on to bring in the trumpeter, a young man with jeb black hair called Ben Cummings.

Young Ben had the most difficult job of the evening because he was playing the maestro’s favourite instrument. In the early numbers I had been mesmerised by Ben’s extraordinary movements, which were commented on afterwards by my neighbours. In a good jazz concert most of the audience are participating by stamping their feet in tune with the music.

The performers on stage, however, when they come from the English generation of Lyttelton and Fawkes, maintain their cool. No extravagant gestures. But young Ben Cummings was born at a time when Mick Jagger was recent history and Louis Armstrong was from the Stone Age.

Ben, when he plays, does the most amazing things with his legs. Both of his knees vibrate intensively in tune with the music. This maybe because he is striving to make himself different in order to earn a living. Or it might be because this is what happens to his legs when he concentrates on producing good music.

In other words, it might be because when he tries his best to play good jazz in the spirit of Lyttelton, Armstrong, Ellah Fitzgerald, etc, this is what happens to his legs.

Who knows?

But in the spirit of the internet, you, the reader, decide.

While I was sitting on a bench at the Cobb today, soaking up the sunshine and drinking in the view of Lyme Bay, a couple passed me. He was in his mid forties. She was somewhat younger.

He said:

She kept my motor bike and would not even let me take my old push bike.

And then they were gone.

Not a few of Britain’s stay-at-home holiday makers came to Charmouth, instead of flying to Spain. They were not disappointed, as my pic demonstrates. Our own visitor, however, needed her walking boots to get to our front door, as my next picture demonstrates.

The work on the front drive is likely to go on for a further two or three weeks. My neighbours have been amazingly tolerant of the noise and the debris. Neil, over the road, who has a grandstand view from his front window, proposes that as part of our new look we should install a sculpture to enhance the new look. Instead of a garden gnome he suggests a frog.

Justin Massingham, a friend of my daughter, dropped in yesterday to do the tenth of his forty swims to raise £40,000 for the National Eczema Society. This most irritating disease blights the lives of around one fifth of children. And as yet nobody has found a cure, although there are some ointments which alleviate it somewhat. His plan was to do the tenth swim at Burton Bradstock. But it took him most of the day to get here from his ninth swim in East Dorset. Two trains and a cycle ride in drizzly rain from Axminster on the A35. By the time we got to Burton Bradstock at 4.30 PM the wind was working itself up to a serious gale. The waves were crashing over the beach. Everyone else was obeying the warning notice about Burton Bradstocks undertow. Justin decided that discretion was the better part of valour so we joined the other holiday makers sheltering from the rain in the beach cafe.

This morning the sun was shining so down we went to Charmouth Beach. By the time we got there the clouds had obliterated the sun and and the waves were big enough to splash over the car park. But in he went through the breakers and managed a half-way decent swim across the bay. Not quite forty minutes.

Our pictures, which I enhanced in Photoshop, demonstrate what a gloomy August we are having. The weather was worse than it was last December when hundreds gathered for the annual Charmouth Christmas Day Swim; in fancy dress not wet suits. But appalling summer weather seems to bring out the best in British people. Lots of mums and dads managing to put on smiles as they herded their kids back to the beach in between the showers. Looking on the bright side. After all there was no need to carry water to fill the moats around the sand castles.

We dispatched Justin from Axminster, where he caught a train to some place in Wiltshire where he is going to swim in a river. You can find out how to sponsor his swim, and help all those kids with eczema, by following this link to his web site. Below is a picture from his site of him with his daughter, Martha, who suffers from eczema.

…..according to one of those round robin emails I received today. It did not promise I would win a million dollars if I sent it on to twenty others. It was written imperfectly, as if it was the revelation of someone who had suddenly discovered a truth. Though it did have a link urging me to sign up for a premium Flicker service costing real money.

So maybe I should post this in Business and Politics as an example of how money is extracted from the unsuspecting in 2008.

But what the hell, I liked what it said. So I sent it to seven names in my contact book. Except that there were not seven names in my contact book, because I have not yet spent the necessary time to restore it, since my motherboard blew up a few months ago and I had to buy a new computer.

Below you can read what Anonymous wrote. Probably American. Or it could be that most people who learn English these days think biscuits are cookies.

Old Age , I decided , is a gift

I am now , probably for the first time in my life , the person I have always
wanted to be. Oh , not my body! I sometime despair over my body , the
wrinkles , the baggy eyes , and the sagging butt. And often I am taken aback
by that old person that lives in my mirror (who looks like my mother!) , but
I don’t agonize over those things for long.

I would never trade my amazing friends , my wonderful life , my loving
family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I’ve aged , I’ve become
more kind to myself , and less critical of myself. I’ve become my own
friend.

I don’t chide myself for eating that extra cookie , or for not making my bed
, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn’t need, but looks so
avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat , to be messy , to be
extravagant.

I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they
understood the great freedom that comes with aging.

Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM
and sleep until noon?

I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60&70′s , and if I
, at the same time , wish to weep over a lost love. I will.I will wal k the
beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body , and will dive
into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from
the jet set .

They , too , will get old.

I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again , some of life is just as
well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things.

Sure , over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break
when you lose a loved one , or when a child suffers , or even when
somebody’s beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us
strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine
and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray , and
to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face.
So many have never laughed , and so many have died before their hair could
turn silver. As you get older , it is easier to be positive. You care less
about what other people think. I don’t question myself anymore. I’ve even
earned the right to be wrong.

So , to answer your question , I like being old. It has set me free. I like
the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am
still here , I will not waste time lamenting what could have been , or
worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day. (If I
feel like it)

FRIENDS FOREVER!

Forward this to at least 7 people and see what happens on your screen . You
will laugh your head off!!!!!!!!!

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Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr!

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Despite the rain and the chilly wind outside and the lure of the Olympic Games inside, many of the hardy inhabitants of Charmouth trooped down The Street to the annual Flower Show. Janet went to look at the flowers. I went to take a few pics of whatever took my fancy.

There were many cups and plates to be won, and some of the regulars, who had no doubt been working on their entries all summer, managed to win two or three.

My own first prizes went to a category meant to evoke the spirit of All that Jazz and Rhapsody in Blue. Given the appalling quality of my pictures I need to tell you that All that Jazz had a miniture jazz band around it.

It was not until I got there that I realised there was a photography competition as well. This is a picture I took yesterday which I might have entered in the Men at Work category. Since I took it the drive has been covered with red scalpel bits, many of which were transferred to the hall floor as I went to and fro. Tomorrow’s visitors will have to leave their shoes at the door Japanese style.

Yesterday it rained. This morning there is a thick mist so that I cannot see much further than the end of the drive. I wake from a dream in which I am wondering whether I shall be able to stick another ten years teaching journalism at City University. Which takes me back in time about nineteen years.

Depressed about journalism. Does it really ever find out anything? Remember a lack lustre item on BBC Newsnight last night. Gavin Esler was doing an item about who Barack Obama and John McCain would choose for their Vice President.

As the interviews dragged on it became abundantly clear that sleuths of Newsnight had absoluely no idea of the answers. Reminded me of those days on The Times when I have spent the whole day on the telephone and no-one has told me anything at all interesting. But the deadline is approaching and there is an empty space to fill in tomorrow’s paper.

Esler himself seems pretty depressed, so much so that he moves the discussion to whether it matters who the Vice President is, with some clips of former Vice Presidents, some of whom are forgotten, like Gerald Ford, even though he went on to President himself for a few months. And Richard Nixon, who went on to become the most disgraceful US President of my lifetime.

But Esler did ask one interesting question: Why was Obama only neck and neck in the US polls? Following his recent tour he has attracted a huge following in Europe. He answered the question himself, by noting that most recent elections have been close.

True. But not a very convincing answer. Two months ago, when Hillary Clinton  was still fightingObama for Democratic candidature, the polls were indicating a Democratic landslide.

None of the journalist pundits has explained why the Democratic lead has been whittled away to nothing. Most of the Clinton supporters do appear to have shifted to Obama.

Two months ago there was a lot of discussion about whether America was ready to elect a black President or a female President. These are the kind of questions which neither journalists nor opinion pollsters can get reliable answers to.

Far too many people lie in their answers. Even to themselves.

We shall have to wait until the morning of the fifth of November before we know whether the American electorate is ready to elect a black President. But maybe journalists can make a useful contribution by keeping the discussion going.

The sky is still all grey. But the mist has lifted a bit. I can now see the horizon. The traffic is moving on the A35 and the workman have arrived to work on my drive. So something might be achieved today.

This blog reflects my rage about the computer age which has happened during my lifetime.

I totally failed to to get on my website, my video clip of the Riverside Jazzers, who do not have a web site, though they play very decent jazz.

Which is a great pity. Because, jazz was the music of protest, by America’s blacks, born into a country which said any humble citizen could inhabit the White House. (even a black!).

But their daily reality was very different. Most blacks found it not easy to earn enough to live, let alone give their children a decent education. But Louis Armstrong and Ellah Fitzgerald, and many others, showed what the blacks could do.

In August, 2008, this is for the first time a realistic possibility. Barack Obama may become President next November.

But that is by no means certain. And America is not yet sure that it wants to take the risk. Because in America the power is held by whites not blacks.

It should not make a difference.

But it does.

In my new life in the country I did, yesterday, what English country folk have been doing for centuries, paid my respects to the Lord of the Manor at Forde Abbey. And, also of course, taking advantage of the opportunity to roam his estate and goggle at his house and the contents. This being the twenty-first century the Lord did not provide all this largesse for free. The occasion is now called an Open Day and you pay when you go into the car park. The proceeds go to the farmers’ benevolent society, because in 2008 land-owning in the country more likely to yield a loss than a profit. The real money is made in the city and on the web; the farmers are not much richer than the peasants. And in constant danger of going bankrupt if they get their sums wrong.

The present owner of Forde Abbey is not even a Lord. He is plain Mr Roper, but a gentleman, who is concerned to maintain his inheritance and also do his bit for people living in the country. It is not an easy job but we should not weep for him too much, because as you can see from the pic at the top, he is not short of space to put up his relatives and friends and he is living in a pad, which Prince Charles might give his kingdom for. It is built in the style of architects he loves, like Inigo Jones. Much more substantial than Norman Foster with his wobbly bridges.

It was a great day. But, at this point, I should come clean. I went because it was a dreary rainy day, and my concern was to keep the grand-children amused.

Mr Roper delivered. There was Punch and Judy, cut short by a particularly heavy shower, but replayed later. There were lots of dogs and some donkeys. And a display by drum majorettes, for those childern who watch too much US television. There was a brilliant falconer, who is also finding it hard work to adapt to the modern age.

As you can see from my pic, his son, whom he wants to continue the family tradition, looks quite as much at a loss as the owl, which took his father years to train.

The display of old cars by the Taunton lot was a great hit with at least one of the fathers, as you can see from another pic below.

The cream teas, alas, were sadly lacking in cream and the scones tasted more like Macdonalds than Devon, Dorest or Somerset.

But my day was made by the Riverside Jazzers, see video clip below, if it works.

In conclusion, I should give you a few facts.

Forde Abbey was created in the twelth century, not by American consumer capitalism, but by the Cistercian monks, in one of those periods of history when God and Mamon worked together in perfect harmony. At that time the monks owned the whole of Charmouth, including the land on which my bungalow stands.

The British yeoman families who grabbed the lands in the years after Henry VIII had freed us from the Papal yoke lost much of it by supporting the wrong side, when the Duke of Monmouth challenged James II in 1685.

That’s ancient history.

But it lives with us now.

New Labour, which was governed by Tony Blair, whose politics were decided by his wife, a convinced socialist and also a Roman Catholic. Blair soon and very happily made his peace with American consumer capitalism, and later with Roman Catholicism and the Pope.

His successor, Gordon Brown, who was of the Scottish protestant heritage, has made a terrible mess of things. Historically he is on the side of Monmouth, who fought the kingdom of James II, who was a Catholic. But in power, as the main ally and boss of economics for Tony Blair, he befriended American consumer capitalism.

He took power, when Blair reluctantly resigned, just at the time when American consumer capitalism was in dire trouble. The poorish American people who have followed it, and bought their own homes on mortgages which they cannot afford to pay, are in trouble. As is the US economy.

So the US wants a change from George W Bush. The UK wants a change from Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. And the world most definitely wants a change from Bush/Blair/Brown.