Posts
Monday, 30 September 2013
The Enigma of Nic Jones; Acoustic Guitar Style
BBC iPlayer documentary
"Nic Jones is a legend of British folk music. His 1980 record Penguin Eggs is regarded as a classic. In a poll by the Observer a few years ago, Penguin Eggs was rated number 79 of the 100 Best Records of All Time, just above Station to Station by David Bowie and just below Let It Bleed by The Rolling Stones - amazing for an LP that never actually charted. His iconic song Canadee-i-o has even been covered by Bob Dylan.
Many believe that Nic was destined for international stardom; his funky, rhythmical and percussive guitar style and smooth singing meant that his music crossed musical barriers.
In 1982, Nic Jones was at the peak of his career, but driving home from a gig one night a near-fatal car crash changed his life forever. Almost every bone in his body was broken and neurological damage meant that he would never play his guitar in front of an audience again. Apart from a couple of tribute concerts, Nic Jones disappeared from the public eye for thirty years. Then in the summer of 2012, encouraged by friends and family, Nic returned to the stage to play several festival performances accompanied by his guitarist son, Joe Jones and keyboard player Belinda O'Hooley. The concerts were a resounding success and for his old and new fans, a moving comeback for their musical hero.
The film is the emotional story of Nic's return but also demonstrates why he is so revered, not just in folk circles but across all music genres. Nic has inspired a whole generation of younger artists including BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards winners Jim Moray, Eliza Carthy, Sam Carter and Blair Dunlop. They all appear in the film, as does American singer/songwriter Anais Mitchell. Folk legends Martin Carthy, Martin Simpson, Chris Wood and ex-Fairport Convention founder Ashley Hutchings are also featured".
The Oxford American Magazine; The Southern Music Issue (Louisiana)
Here's a great quarterly magazine, The Oxford American- "The Southern Magazine of Good Writing"
Issue 79 , The 2012 Southern Music Issue, had a fascinating article about Chris King by Amanda Petrusich, and the cover CD contained some amazing music from Louisiana, much of it I'd never heard before (ok I knew Professor Longhair, Robert Pete Williams and Dr. John).
Try these three tracks for starters (YouTube videos):
Sugar Bee, Cleveland Crochet and Hill Billy Ramblers
Real Live Living Hurtin' Man by Johnny Adams
Reconsider Me, Margaret Lewis
I'm going straight down to Louisiana!
Subscription details
A past issue featured Howlin' Wolf on the cover, and an article by Peter Guralnick:
Sugarbag Man
Images of the Sugarbag Man in Aboriginal Art
I have a print of Peter Nabarlambarl's “Sugarbag Man (Dreaming Story)”, etching on cotton paper, limited edition number 47 of 75.
What Byron really did for Greece...
...and why it still matters!
Read here
Professor Roderick Beaton, Cambridge Festival of Ideas
24 October 2013
Book here
See also: Byron in Greece (blog posting)
Max Beerbohm caricature, 1904
Sunday, 29 September 2013
Matchboxes: The Origins of my Travel-Bug?
Before I entered my teens, I used to love beach-combing whilst walking the dog along the tide-line beside the Solent towards Warsash, collecting flotsam and jetsam, and matchboxes with labels from all over the world. Here are the labels from a few, thrown overboard from ocean-liners. Symbols of freedom and voyages to exotic places!
From "On the Origins of My Travel-Bug"
I
think of Southampton .
Summer
holidays.
Maybe
it was
The
matchbox labels
The
exotic boxes
Washed
up on the shore
From
all over the world
With
the flotsam and jetsam
From
trawlers and transatlantic liners.
We
walked the beach
To
Warsash
Combing
the tide-line,
Restless,
curious.
Maybe
it was those matchbox labels,
Or
the boats forever leaving,
Those
ships all setting out to sea
On
voyages, mind-voyages...
The
ships, lit up
Along
their decks,
Waiting
for their freedom.
Such
an air of expectation!
***
Another variation on the same theme:
Matchbox Labels
I walk the beach
Beside the Solent,
As ocean liners come and go
(Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth!)
I know their flags, their draft, displacement.
I collect the jetsam
Thrown overboard,
Flotsam from the ends of the earth.
Matchbox after matchbox,
The labels show exotic places,
Strange languages and signs.
Once I found some old brass kit-
A navigator’s aid.
Beside the Solent
Something lit inside-
The burning need to travel.
”I ain’t got no matches
But I got so far to go-
Would a matchbox hold my clothes?”
***
Shajarian, Iranian Maestro Singer
A new sound for some of us (YouTube)
"I see no friends around, whatever happened to every friend?
...What has come of loyalty? Whatever happened to every friend?
For years no gem has been dug from the mine of loyalty..."
© Shahriar Shahriari
Saturday, 28 September 2013
Swanage, Public and Popular Art
I went to Swanage today, in the hope of seeing a collection of significant paintings at the Swanage Museum and Heritage Centre. I was particularly interested in the Alfred Palmer and Job Hardy works. It turns out they can currently only be seen online, as the new Heritage Centre has no room to display them. This BBC information was rather misleading. Perhaps I didn't read it carefully enough.
I wasn't (of course) expecting to see work by Augustus John, Charles Conder, Paul Nash, Henry Tanworth Wells or Leslie Moffat Ward, but I was hoping to soak in the atmosphere of the town and an environment which has attracted so many artists. Swanage still has plenty to offer.
There's the Art Trail, and the Heritage Centre holds some excellent loose-leaf files compiled by Robert Field, containing many photocopied reproductions of local landscapes: Swanage, Purbeck, Corfe Castle, Worbarrow Bay and Lulworth, as seen by a host of different artists. I will certainly be going back, when the Heritage Centre puts some of the landscapes on display in connection with the AONB Drawing Inspiration project. Hopefully I will be able to make an appointment to see some of the stored works much sooner.
In the meantime, the results of a less serious short walk along the seafront and on the pier:
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Friday, 27 September 2013
British Satirical Humour, The Now Show, "We're Britain- We're Better Than This!"
The Now Show sketches made me laugh - (BBC Radio 4, iPlayer) at a time when there is little to laugh about. Brilliant comic writing, political satire and sure-fire delivery.
"An obliquely comic look at the week's news"- especially the Party conferences.
"Steve Punt and Susan Calman present a comedic look at the week's news, providing a topical mix of stand-up, sketches and songs that tell you everything you need to know. With Jon Holmes, Laura Shavin, and Jonny and the Baptists".
Produced by Alexandra Smith.
Well done!
Greece Updates
The New Yorker
Social Security, thorny problems (Kathimerini)
To Vima
Monitoring racist violence
Banks and bad loans
Unchartered waters (Helena Smith, The Observer)
Prosecutor's Report (EnetEnglish)
New anti-Racism law? (Reuters)
Nikos Dendias
and some sad news for Corfiots
Zisimos (Corfu) closing 30 September
Greece: The Days of Pavlos Fyssas, "Out of Control"
YouTube, tribute and memorial video (Eleftherotypia multimedia team)
Dorset: Cranbourne Chase, Artists
"In the shadow of the Chase", by Vivienne Light
From Dorset Life
Dorset County Museum, past exhibition
Ancient Greece in Dorset: The Lenthay Green Mosaic, Apollo and Marsyas
Apollo on the lyre, Marsyas on the double flute.
See mosaic here
Related: Euripides at Kingston Lacy
Swanage, Gateway to the Jurassic Coast:
Reynolds Stone, Engravings
Some engravings by Reynolds Stone
More
A corner of a showcase at the Dorset County Museum (containing one of the most familiar engravings or mottos I have known, throughout my career, in the form of a book plate in British Council libraries):
Thursday, 26 September 2013
John Glover, Representing Nature and the Tasmanian Eucalyptus Tree
.jpg)
In the round-up session of the "Australia: Land and Landscape Symposium" I had a query about a point made by Andrew Wilton in his talk on "Australian sublime".
He had said that Glover was noted for his disciplined observation of nature and its accurate representation. I would not disagree. But are "the serpentine curves of the gum trees" in Glover's paintings really that accurate?
Ron Radford also remarked that Glover was noted for his Claudian landscapes before he migrated to Australia, but that he became remarkably realist once in Australia, his trees being distinctly recorded.
I well remember that in the 1990s many Australian art historians, when discussing the landscapes of European colonial period painters, would argue that Glover's gum-trees were exaggerated in their sinuousness.
An example:
"The sinuosity of gum trees, which although the gums of Mills Plains do exhibit this tendency, is an obvious exaggeration and a weakness of the larger landscapes" (John Glover, John A. McPhee, 1977, p. 60).
Another example, on Glover's sketches for "A Corrobee: of Natives near Mills Plains":
"Glover has, in sketch number 14, anthropomorphised the tree, imbuing its limbs with a Medusan quality so that they writhe like snakes...serpentine branches become a distinguishing feature of his Aboriginal landscapes." Ian McLean, in John Glover and the Colonial Picturesque, 2003, p.128.
A further example:
"He was an acute observer of the Tasmanian landscape, and yet his compositions always balance the explorer's interest in the exotic- he was evidently so struck by the sinuous curves of the eucalyptus that his trees have a strange and rather eery animation- with an uncomplicated sense of being at home, embodied in the peaceful cattle grazing beneath those trees". Christopher Allen, Art in Australia, From Colonization to Postmodernism, 1997, p.28.
Tim Bonyhady discusses the matter in Images in Opposition, Australian Landscape Painting, 1801-1890 (1985, pages 118-119):
"Glover was the first artist to be preoccupied with the shape of the eucalypts. Although he captured the openness of these trees, Glover always rendered them more picturesque by exaggerating their sinuous structure".
He goes on to say that many colonists were nevertheless struck "by the accuracy with which he depicted the eucalypts". "Masterly", "incomparable", was the view of one visitor to Glover's home. A newspaper critic, writing about Glover's sketchbooks, praised the trouble Glover had taken to acquire the knack of drawing gum trees, "with their gnarled trunks and curling snaky branches".
In the introduction to his book (p. xi), Bonyhady reviews the literature on Australian landscape painting:
"In much of this literature, especially that dating prior to 1945, the dominant issue has been the success or failure of the artists in conveying the shape of eucalypt trees and the sharpness of Australian light...commentators in the late nineteenth century rejected the work of most colonial artists as tarnished by their European training and from early in the twentieth century increasingly came to see Tom Roberts and his associates as the first artists who had truly rendered Australian scenery".
Australian art critics have often suggested that early European or British painters visiting or living in Australia (whether as convicts, officials or settlers) found it difficult to come to terms with the Australian light and landscape, seeing and perceiving nature and composing landscapes under the influence of Claude Lorrain and others, and thus failing to represent it accurately or with innate, native-born sympathy. They would impose or unconsciously superimpose an English sense of order, for instance.
This view seems to have been taken on board by current British critics and art historians (and not just about colonial era painters), at the same time that Australians appear to have changed their minds.
Waldemar Januszczak writes: "With much overuse of Courbet's palette knife, the Dorset-born Roberts managed to make the coast at Mentone look passably like the landscape at Weymouth" (The Sunday Times Culture Magazine, 22 September, 2013).
Apparently Glover's sinuous and serpentine eucalyptus trees are now considered to be extremely faithful and unexaggerated representations of the gums in the area where he was painting in Northern Tasmania. This seems to be the view of Angus Trumble, an expatriate Tasmanian art-expert, currently Senior Curator of Paintings and Sculpture at the Yale Centre for British Art, who was at the symposium.
Ian Henderson of the Menzies Centre agreed with me that in the recent past a common Australian critique of colonial painters' depiction of eucalyptus trees and other Australian fauna and flora was indeed close to my recollection (and readings) of prevailing opinion at the time.
I haven't studied the eucalypts in the north of Tasmania. Whether the branches and trunks are exaggerated by Glover or not, it is still possible to argue, as John McPhee does, that an exaggerated feature can be used in compositions "as a formal constructional element and in some cases for its expressive qualities" (1977, p. 60).
Either way, Glover can be praised for his accurate representation and interpretation of nature.
A small issue, perhaps, but one which exposes some enduring post-colonial national sensitivities in both countries.
In his foreword to the magnificent "John Glover and the Colonial Picturesque" (David Hansen et al) 2003), Robert S McKay writes: "Through it we can experience the first sustained transformations of European landscape conventions towards a vigorous and uniquely Australian vision".
See this posting on A corroboree of natives in Mills Plains, 1832
"The giant native tree, silhouetted against the sky, is bent and dying as the sun sinks, and so becomes a metaphor for the fate of the ancient race".
A friend in Australia sent some feedback on this posting, saying that he'd always thought the key aspect of Glover's work was 'the fictional presence of his Aborigines'. Tony Bonyhady commented that the paintings of early landscape painters like Glover "consistently show the Aborigines in places from which they had been expelled and pursuing a way of life which they no longer enjoyed" (Images in Opposition, p.24).
Of rather greater significance than the shape of the eucalyptus trees...but Bonyhady points out that until 1945 the dominant issue was how successfully the artists conveyed the shape of the eucalyptus trees and the Australian light. The subject has not gone away. The eucalyptus tree is not just a decorative or subsidiary element of landscape composition, πάρεργον (any more than the olive or cypress trees are minor details of Edward Lear's Ionian Island landscapes), in the sense used by Thomas Blount in 1656:
"Landskip, Parergon, Paisage or By-work, which is an expressing of the Land, by Hills, Woods, Castles, Valleys, Rivers, Cities, &c as far as may be shewed in our Horizon. All that which in a picture is not of the body or argument thereof is Landskip, Parergon, or bywork".
As Sarah Thomas remarked at the symposium, locality and landscape are back with a vengeance.
I'm now reminded of some lines from John Betjeman's belated poetic Christmas Thank-You letter to two members of the British Council staff in Sydney, February 1963, following his first visit to Australia in 1962:
"I should have sent you Christmas Cards. I know
How in the Commonwealth these small things count,
These little thoughts that forge the loving chain
Which binds the gum tree to the English oak".
It's time we all went back to John Ruskin's Modern Painters:
Try Volume I, Part 2, Section VI:
OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION.—CONCLUSION.
CHAPTER I.
OF TRUTH OF VEGETATION.***
JOHN GLOVER
A Corroboree of Natives in Mills Plains, 1832
Oil on canvas, 56.5 71.4 cm
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Morgan Thomas Bequest Fund, 1951
JOHN GLOVER
View of Mills Plains, Van Diemen's Land, 1833
Oil on canvas, 76.2 114.6 cm
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Morgan Thomas Bequest
Fund, 1951
JOHN GLOVER
A View of the Artist's House and Garden, in Mills Plains, Van
Diemen's Land, 1835
Oil on canvas, 76.4 114.4 cm
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Morgan Thomas Bequest Fund, 1951
JOHN GLOVER
`Cawood' on the Ouse River, 1838
Oil on canvas, 75.5 114 cm
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart. Presented by Mrs
George C. Nicholas in memory of her husband, 1935 - See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/visual-arts/artworks-in-londons-royal-academy-show-australia/story-fn9d3avm-1226722071425#sthash.L8Jx65IG.dpuf
Update on Bush Fires
Australia, Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, Hetti Perkins, Art + Soul
Franchesca Cubillo told me about Hetti Perkins' Art + Soul when I was at the excellent "Australia: Land and Landscape" Symposium at Australia House in London yesterday. It would be great to have it screened on British television at this time. Franchesca reminded us that this year marks the 50th Anniversary of the Yirrkala Bark Petition. More about Bark Petitions.
Hetti and Rachel Perkins (YouTube)
Hetti Perkins on Art + Soul (YouTube)
Hetti with musicians (YouTube)
The Charlie Perkins Trust, Scholarships
See also, some reviews of the "Australia" exhibition at the Royal Academy
Monday, 23 September 2013
Dorset, A Bird's Eye View, Mid 18th Century
A view of part of Dorset, etching by George Bickham the Elder
"Bird's eye view of Dorset: in the foreground a coach driven along a road "From the Crown Inn Dorchester", three men, two on horseback, one on foot with a dog, look over the river Stour; a rocky landscape beyond with the coast from Poole to Lyme and inland towns from Christchurch to Axminster; annotated with topographical references".
Sunday, 22 September 2013
Robert Louis Stevenson Gives Away His Birthday
Read his letter here
We should all do the same!
Other travellers with the same birthday as Robert Louis Stevenson
Saint Augustine, 13/11/354
Dylan's song Joan Baez and Bob Joan solo
Edward Trelawny, 13/11/1792
Mary Henrietta Kingsley, 13/11/1862
Australia: Land and Landscape at the RA (and Barry Humphries; Sunday Times Culture Section)
Today's Sunday Times Culture magazine (22 September):
Two and a half pages devoted to Barrie Humphries, two pages devoted to the Australia exhibition at The Royal Academy, reviewed by Waldemar Januszczak. The Australian High Commission will not be amused.
Tanya Gold is very unfair about Barry Humphries' paintings. She says "his paintings are terrible". I can't agree with that judgement, for starters, even though I consider that his poetry has greater merit. She does acknowledge that his sculptural work "anticipated Damien Hirst by 40 years".
Barry Humphries has written about the RA exhibition (in The Spectator):
"Australian landscapes from the colonial period and late 19th century diffuse a feeling of isolation, melancholy and exile, emotions which can still sometimes be felt in the suburban streets of Melbourne on a late Tuesday afternoon in August".
Strange to think Barry found Melbourne so boring in his youth, now that it has been judged, for the third time in a row, the best city in the world for liveability.
To add insult to injury, Waldemar Januszczak suggests that a lot of the art on display in the RA Australia exhibition is "weedy, provincial and all too European"; "lightweight and provincial". "The wrong people became artists". Dorchester's Tom Roberts "manages to make the coast of Mentone look passably like the landscape near Weymouth". "The crassness that characterises these repetitive responses to Australian landscape is also in evidence, alas, in the figure paintings of the times".
He writes scathingly of one "ugly painting" by Albert Tucker, and of "a complete absence of grace or sensitivity" in a particularly powerful Arthur Boyd work:
He reserves his most barbed criticism for John Olsen's Sydney Sun.
On Aboriginal paintings: "There are dull canvas approximations, knocked out in reduced dimensions, by a host of repetitive Aborigine artists making a buck...the Australian art world has managed to create what amounts to a market in decorative rugs...spotty meanderings...tourist tat".
Don't be put off by his review or by Adrian Searle's in The Guardian recently. I haven't seen the show yet, but I have seen many of the works on display during the course of seven years living in Australia.
Another controversial review, by Brian Sewell, The Evening Standard.
After we have all had ample time to absorb years of intelligent, critical writing inspired by post-colonial theory, and by "the Empire writing back", it takes one aback to come across fresh evidence of the unreformed prejudices and attitudes redolent of a metropolitan cultural superiority complex, of putting down and disparaging the "Colonials", whether they originated in Europe or were born in Australia.
It's already twenty years since "Aratjara, Art of the First Australians" came to London, to the Hayward Gallery.
List of artworks on display at the RA 'Australia' exhibition (The Australian)
RA promotional video
I can't wait to see "Australia: Land and Landscape" at The Royal Academy. Whether you prefer the landscapes of John Glover or Rover Thomas, the creations of Ian Fairweather or Queenie McKenzie (I love all these artists' work), don't fail to see it before December 8th! Ignore all jealous poms and the "strewth, cobber" jibes. NB I am not Australian. Take care not to rile Ned Kelly.
Earlier posting
Posting with some works illustrated
Update: The Empire IS writing back! (Sydney Morning Herald)
The Australian
Thanks for the links, Jeremy.
See also:
Financial Times, Visual Arts:
September 20, 2013 7:09 pm
‘Australia’ at the Royal Academy: dreamtime meets the incomers
By Jackie Wullschlager
Longing belonging, Hossein Valamanesh, 1997
Two and a half pages devoted to Barrie Humphries, two pages devoted to the Australia exhibition at The Royal Academy, reviewed by Waldemar Januszczak. The Australian High Commission will not be amused.
Tanya Gold is very unfair about Barry Humphries' paintings. She says "his paintings are terrible". I can't agree with that judgement, for starters, even though I consider that his poetry has greater merit. She does acknowledge that his sculptural work "anticipated Damien Hirst by 40 years".
Barry Humphries has written about the RA exhibition (in The Spectator):
"Australian landscapes from the colonial period and late 19th century diffuse a feeling of isolation, melancholy and exile, emotions which can still sometimes be felt in the suburban streets of Melbourne on a late Tuesday afternoon in August".
Strange to think Barry found Melbourne so boring in his youth, now that it has been judged, for the third time in a row, the best city in the world for liveability.
To add insult to injury, Waldemar Januszczak suggests that a lot of the art on display in the RA Australia exhibition is "weedy, provincial and all too European"; "lightweight and provincial". "The wrong people became artists". Dorchester's Tom Roberts "manages to make the coast of Mentone look passably like the landscape near Weymouth". "The crassness that characterises these repetitive responses to Australian landscape is also in evidence, alas, in the figure paintings of the times".
He writes scathingly of one "ugly painting" by Albert Tucker, and of "a complete absence of grace or sensitivity" in a particularly powerful Arthur Boyd work:
He reserves his most barbed criticism for John Olsen's Sydney Sun.
On Aboriginal paintings: "There are dull canvas approximations, knocked out in reduced dimensions, by a host of repetitive Aborigine artists making a buck...the Australian art world has managed to create what amounts to a market in decorative rugs...spotty meanderings...tourist tat".
Don't be put off by his review or by Adrian Searle's in The Guardian recently. I haven't seen the show yet, but I have seen many of the works on display during the course of seven years living in Australia.
Another controversial review, by Brian Sewell, The Evening Standard.
After we have all had ample time to absorb years of intelligent, critical writing inspired by post-colonial theory, and by "the Empire writing back", it takes one aback to come across fresh evidence of the unreformed prejudices and attitudes redolent of a metropolitan cultural superiority complex, of putting down and disparaging the "Colonials", whether they originated in Europe or were born in Australia.
It's already twenty years since "Aratjara, Art of the First Australians" came to London, to the Hayward Gallery.
List of artworks on display at the RA 'Australia' exhibition (The Australian)
RA promotional video
I can't wait to see "Australia: Land and Landscape" at The Royal Academy. Whether you prefer the landscapes of John Glover or Rover Thomas, the creations of Ian Fairweather or Queenie McKenzie (I love all these artists' work), don't fail to see it before December 8th! Ignore all jealous poms and the "strewth, cobber" jibes. NB I am not Australian. Take care not to rile Ned Kelly.
Earlier posting
Posting with some works illustrated
Update: The Empire IS writing back! (Sydney Morning Herald)
The Australian
Thanks for the links, Jeremy.
See also:
Financial Times, Visual Arts:
September 20, 2013 7:09 pm
‘Australia’ at the Royal Academy: dreamtime meets the incomers
By Jackie Wullschlager
Longing belonging, Hossein Valamanesh, 1997
Drawing Inspiration, Artists in Dorset, 1800-1960; AONB
Report on the Drawing Inspiration project, the cultural legacy of artists working in Dorset
AONB Images Directory (pdf)
Crystal Johnson- see paragraph 5.2.6, for Crystal's reference to my own book project "ART AND THE DORSET LANDSCAPE"
I have been researching the subject of the book - "Art and the Dorset Landscape" - for nearly three years now. NB The approach of the book and the target audience have changed somewhat since Crystal produced that summary.
More from Crystal
Nairobi, Kenya
Following this unfolding tragedy- appalling terrorist attack on shopping centre in Nairobi
MSN
BBC
Telegraph
Kenya Standoff (BBC Update)
Siege Over (BBC Update)
Nina-Maria, CCTV on Al Shabaab, Recruitment Issues: Published on Sep 25, 2013
"The White House says it is troubled by claims that Al-Shabaab has been actively recruiting militants in America. The allegations follow revelations by the Kenyan government that up to three of the gunmen in the attack on Nairobi, were from the US. Nina-Maria Potts reports on how the Somali-American community is reacting".
Westgate Siege (BBC)
Surviving Westgate (New Yorker)
On Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor (The New Yorker)
Saturday, 21 September 2013
John Hubbard, American Artist in Chilcombe, Dorset
Information about John Hubbard, plus video
The video:
John talks about his life and work in rural Dorset over five decades. This film, produced for his exhibition at the Luther W Brady gallery in Washington DC from May 15 - June 28, 2013, includes insights into the process behind his extraordinary abstract impressionist paintings, as well as a selection of songs he learned as an art student in New York in the 1950s.
Dorset paintings (scroll down,enter word Dorset in data search)
Douglas Hall essay
The gardens at Chalcombe House, slide show
In 1961 John Hubbard married and settled near Bridport, Dorset
The garden at Chilcombe
Telegraph article, Sarah Raven
Rowley Gallery
Internet Use Amongst People Aged 65 and Over in Dorset (and other English Counties and Regions)
Age UK has just released some interesting statistics.
As far as Dorset is concerned only 42.3% of people aged 65+ are online or use the internet.
57.7% are offline or don't use the internet.
District and Country Councils should take note when planning how to communicate with the wider population and how best to distribute service-guides and other public infomation. It is not enough to rely on web-based information pages- unless they want to save money by excluding over half the over 65s in most counties in England.
Only five counties in England have 50% or more people over 65 online.
North-South Divide
Disabled people face an even greater digital divide.
Friday, 20 September 2013
Damian McBride on the Vanity and Hypocrisy of Politicians
Damian McBride has written that he was “sucked in like a concubine at a Roman orgy” to the “dark”’ world of politics which encourages “vanity, duplicity, greed, hypocrisy and cruelty”.
I'm reminded of a small poem, my first effort, written in November 1961, when I was still a schoolboy:
Hypocritical political
Leaders. Breeders
Of contempt, exempt
From humanity;
Filled with insane
And empty vanity.
Only seeking in reality,
Power, fame and private gain.
****
No real surprises then, in the Daily Mail
Anthony Gormley, 25th PRAEMIUM IMPERIALE
A significant prize for sculptor Anthony Gormley
(and for architect David Chipperfield, and the three other distinguished Laureates)
25th PRAEMIUM IMPERIALE
On Tuesday, September 17, the names of the 5 new Praemium Imperiale Laureates were announced in Rome, New York, London, Berlin, Paris and Tokyo. The 5 recipients are as follows:
Michelangelo Pistoletto Painting
Antony Gormley Sculpture
David Chipperfield Architecture
Plácido Domingo Music
Francis Ford Coppola Theatre/Film
The artists are recognized and awarded for their achievements, for the impact they have had internationally on the arts, and for their role in enriching the global community. Each laureate receives an honorarium of 15 million yen, and a diploma and medal will be presented by honorary patron of the Japan Art Association Prince Hitachi in an awards ceremony held in Tokyo on October 16, 2013.
The Dorset Writers' Network; Bridport Story Slam
Information here
Events here
Example:
Bridport Story Slam
Wednesday 16th October 2013, part of Bridport Open Book Festival.
"After the success of last year's story slam at the Beach and Barnicott we're back for another round. This open mic event celebrates fresh writing talent from writers across Dorset and beyond. Writers have the opportunity to showcase their work in front of a live audience and a panel of expert judges, including editor of Roving Press Julie Musk, Gail Aldwin - flash fiction expert, and novelist Kate Kelly.
Writers can register in advance via zomzara@googlemail.com (or turn up and register on the night). If there are more registered writers than time slots, the names will be entered into a draw. Each time slot is five minutes maximum – roughly 780 words. All genres and styles of original prose fiction welcome.
The Beach & Barnicott is renowned for its good food, so come along early and grab a bite to eat, and then settle in for a brilliant night of stories and music. The action kicks off on Wednesday 16th October at the Beach & Barnicott, Bridport at 7:15pm for a 7:30pm start. Tickets will be available on the door at £5 each".
If you’d like more details about how to take part, please email zomzara@googlemail.com.
See also Gail Aldwin's blog posting
Thursday, 19 September 2013
Land Registry in Cyprus and Greece; Electronic Property Register, Greece
The Land Registry in Cyprus - No accurate ownership details for a quarter of a million properties.
What is the true situation in Greece, where so many incompatible topographic maps, so many property borders and land demarcations remain in dispute, alongside problems with illegal buildings and the huge number of drawn-out legal cases which are ongoing or still due to come to court?
Electronic Property Register (Greek Reporter)
A Swedish Bank in Poundbury, Dorset (Tack så mycket!
Handelsbanken, Dorchester
Location:
Handelsbanken
198 Bridport Road
Poundbury
Handelsbanken in brief
Customer Satisfaction
Quite tempting to change banks, now that it's becoming easier! I'm in favour of their emphasis on local relationship-building, trust and customer service.
Read report in This is Money
This is not an advertisement or an endorsement. I will probably stay with my old bank. The usual inertia. Too much hassle adjusting to new systems?
See Zoe Williams in The Guardian today:
Zoe writes that she "moved to Handelsbanken to coincide with the 7-Day Switch, which launched on Monday. Banks are required to finish the process of transferring your account in seven working days; it's remarkably low-effort from the consumer's point of view, but you should bear in mind that I'm not very far through it. I chose the bank because it has a devolved power structure in which the person in your branch makes the decisions, a countervail to the hollowing-out of the standard workplace in which fewer and fewer people are allowed to make decisions so that everybody can be paid as little as possible.
But I have reservations. It has a monthly £30 charge, and someone has already told me that this is like telling people to feed their children organic rack of lamb, and I make them sick. Which I think is fair. More on this another time. The important thing is to move your money; move it, or stop complaining".
Ripley Blues Again
Beat this!
The third time I've posted a link to Ripley Blues (Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers with Noah Lewis on harmonica), just in case you missed it.
More
and More
Try some country harp by The Swift Jewel Cowboys - Fan It
Mellstock: Stinsford and Thomas Hardy
Useful note for visitors
Hardy's religious beliefs
Alan Bates reads Absent-Mindedness in a Parish Choir (Track 1)
and Afternoon Service at Mellstock (Track 15)
Above my breast,
But travel, memory-possessed,
To where my tremulous being found
Life largest, best.
Hardy's Woodlanders, John Vallins, Country Diary
Always fascinating: John Vallins' Country Diary Guardian columns.
See Wessex Diaries
and a humorous sketch with The Yetties
Hardy on Nature:
In a Wood
Pale beech and pine-tree blue,
Set in one clay,
Bough to bough cannot you
Bide out your day?
When the rains skim and skip,
Why mar sweet comradeship,
Blighting with poison-drip
Neighborly spray?
Heart-halt and spirit-lame,
City-opprest,
Unto this wood I came
As to a nest;
Dreaming that sylvan peace
Offered the harrowed ease—
Nature a soft release
From men’s unrest.
But, having entered in,
Great growths and small
Show them to men akin—
Combatants all!
Sycamore shoulders oak,
Bines the slim sapling yoke,
Ivy-spun halters choke
Elms stout and tall.
Touches from ash, O wych,
Sting you like scorn!
You, too, brave hollies, twitch
Sidelong from thorn.
Even the rank poplars bear
Illy a rival’s air,
Cankering in black despair
If overborne.
Since, then, no grace I find
Taught me of trees,
Turn I back to my kind,
Worthy as these.
There at least smiles abound,
There discourse trills around,
There, now and then, are found
Life-loyalties.
Greece: The Last 'Soviet' State in the EU - and other grim Greek news
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Dorchester, Dorset: Two Bardic Events
Two local events that may be of interest (October 19 and November 9):
Island Stories - must read 'When the Sun Goes Down'
Maria's short stories now available from Amazon.co.uk as a paperback (above),
as well as Kindle e-book (below)
5.0 out of 5 stars A truly enjoyable book 20 Feb 2013
By Ofelya
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
A unique writing style that evokes feelings of empathy, deep reflection and observes our world from a very original perspective.
Which cover design do you prefer?
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
By Maddiegrigg
Format:Kindle Edition
Moving to Corfu for a year, I have been grabbing as much literature as I can about the island. As a previous reviewer has said, this book consists of four short stories, all of them about islands and all very different.
THE EXPLOITATION OF PANOREA will stay in my mind for a long, long time. A modern-day fable, the story is a beautifully written account of what happens when we take our eyes off the prize and let greed take its inevitable course. I do hope the tide can be turned on this particular island. I recommend this book frequently to people I come across. For me, it's a quiet, modest battle cry that starts off slowly and then ends up shouting out that beauty is worth preserving. It's in our hands.
5.0 out of 5 stars Short story brilliance; long-term talent January 1, 2013
By Chris Holmes
Format:Kindle Edition
I declare an interest: I know Maria and to sit and talk to her is an enjoyment separate from the powerful solitary pleasure of reading her. She is the most unwriterly writer i know: talk is talk, writing is writing; she gets the job done.
I still treasure her 'Cat of Portovecchio' as one of the most stunning novels I have read. Barely fiction for the pulses it taps; I live in Corfu and it opened my eyes and heart to my paradise home.
This collection is short stories and her pacing is spot-on. I've worked in the book business and touted short stories by famed novelists who just haven't pulled it off in the challenging discipline of condensing it down.
The PR puff talks of capturing 'the atmosphere and distinctive character of several different islands in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.' Piffle. No 'capture' about it; you are right there. As with the best movie scores, you dont notice the 'capture', you've been transported to the writer's world.
A remarkable collection. If I was handed them in separate sheaves, I'd not spot they were by the same nib. Chameleon brilliance. Mark of a bred-in-the-bone writer. Deserves to be spotted by some alert editorial assistant in one of the major houses and given the international readership Ms Potts deserves, and will achieve.
Food for Thought - and for The Soul
Some interesting insights in this Channel 4 series of thoughtful short films, Can Food Nourish Your Soul?
See also, posting on Culture's Influence on Behaviour
Tuesday, 17 September 2013
Early Cajun Kings (Let Me Play This For You)
Read about these rare Cajun recordings, just reissued.
"Let Me Play This For You: Rare Cajun Music, 1929–1930, assembled by Ron Brown and Christopher King (two of the world’s foremost collectors of Cajun 78s) for the Tompkins Square label, is essential for anyone who appreciates French-speaking Louisiana’s old-time songs and tunes".
Listen "I am happy now" (1929)
Recorded by Victor in New Orleans, 1929; released c. 1941 on Bluebird. Reissued in 2013 on Tompkins Square's "Let Me Play This For You: Rare Cajun Recordings, 1929-1930."
Record transfer / digital remastering by Christopher King.
Culture's Influence on Behaviour; National Differences in Personality; Concepts of Trust
Cross-cultural research topics used to interest me when I worked in different parts of the world.
They still do when it comes to trying to explain differences of attitude and behaviour between people in the countries I know best.
I have been looking through a 1976 paperback, "Culture's Influence on Behaviour" by Robert Serpell, which deals briefly with such topics as cross-cultural psychology; values, motives and personality; child-rearing practices; cognitive development; perceptual skills; the role of language; entrepreneurial behaviour; theories of disease.
More controversially, Eysenck studied national differences of personality.
Social anthropologists have also explored related fields of research and enquiry (see for instance, Cultural Patterns and Technical Change, ed. Margaret Mead, 1955).
Do these disciplines (cross-cultural psychology, social anthropology) offer anything useful nowadays?
If they do, one hopes that diplomats and peace negotiators from all cultural and faith backgrounds have been given some relevant, up-to-date training. Clearly Margaret Mead and Eysenck are now out of date, whatever the value of their original insights.
I haven't been following the literature in these fields. I'd be interested to receive some recommendations about more recent work.
There has been some work on National Cultures, Trust and Ethical Behaviour
see also, this discussion:
Fukuyama, Trust
Trust Pays (pdf report)
Russia, Identity and Values
Billy Connolly: On Growing Old Disgracefully
The Scotsman Interview:
“I think disgraceful is the way to do it. Be a nuisance, stay alive,” he says. “In this bit of the world especially, not so much in America, but in Britain you’re encouraged to wear a cardie and have the crotch of your trousers away down at your knees – bum fainters they call it in Scotland, because if you look at it from behind it looks as if your bum’s fainted.
“You’re constantly told to grow up. ‘Grow up, it’s time you grew up, you’ve got some growing up to do boy’. What they really mean is, get boring, stop being angry, stop being interesting, stop being a nuisance. I would say don’t grow up. By all means grow old, but don’t grow up. Don’t be beige.”
Turandot - Nobody Shall Sleep!
Trailer
Royal Opera House
I couldn't sleep after the show. Very lavish and impressive, but the gratuitous violence and lack of compassion and morality at the heart of it all turned me right off the story and the totally unsympathetic main characters.
The Nessun Dorma competition:
Paul Potts
Pavarotti
Nessun Dorma:
Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma!
Tu pure, o, Principessa,
nella tua fredda stanza,
guardi le stelle
che tremano d'amore
e di speranza.
Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me,
il nome mio nessun saprà!
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dirò
quando la luce splenderà!
Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio
che ti fa mia!
(Il nome suo nessun saprà!...
e noi dovrem, ahime, morir!)
Dilegua, o notte!
Tramontate, stelle!
Tramontate, stelle!
All'alba vincerò!
vincerò, vincerò!
Nobody shall sleep!...
Nobody shall sleep!
Even you, o Princess,
in your cold room,
watch the stars,
that tremble with love and with hope.
But my secret is hidden within me,
my name no one shall know...
No!...No!...
On your mouth I will tell it when the light shines.
And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine!...
(No one will know his name and we must, alas, die.)
Vanish, o night!
Set, stars! Set, stars!
At dawn, I will win! I will win! I will win!
Monday, 16 September 2013
"AUSTRALIA", Royal Academy of Arts, London
A reminder about this unmissable exhibition
21 September—8 December 2013
In the Main Galleries
Organised with the National Gallery of Australia
Australian Art on the move (YouTube)
BBC, On the exhibition
Marking the first major survey of Australian art in the UK for 50 years, this exhibition will span more than 200 years from 1800 to the present day and seeks to uncover the fascinating social and cultural evolution of a nation through its art.
Book Early
Ron Radford lecture, 30 September
Land and Landscape: The Colonial Encounter
Free Lunchtime Lecture
Tim Winton talk, 15 November
The Island Seen and Felt; Some Thoughts about Landscape
AUSTRALIA
SYMPOSIUM DATE AND TIME
Wednesday 25 September 2013 9.30 am – 5.30 pm
LOCATION
Downer Room, Australia House,
Strand, London WC2B 4LA, United Kingdom
BOOKINGS
The symposium is FREE but, to ensure you obtain a seat,
please register before attending.
Ron Radford lecture, 30 September
Land and Landscape: The Colonial Encounter
Free Lunchtime Lecture
Tim Winton talk, 15 November
The Island Seen and Felt; Some Thoughts about Landscape
25 September
SYMPOSIUM DATE AND TIME
Wednesday 25 September 2013 9.30 am – 5.30 pm
LOCATION
Downer Room, Australia House,
Strand, London WC2B 4LA, United Kingdom
BOOKINGS
The symposium is FREE but, to ensure you obtain a seat,
please register before attending.
To register, please go to australialandscape.eventbrite.co.uk
or for enquiries charmane.head@nga.gov.au
Australia: Land and Landscape symposium is a collaboration between the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King’s College London, the Australian High Commission, London, and the National Gallery
of Australia, Canberra. This event is organised in conjunction with the exhibition Australia at the Royal Academy of Arts, London
PROGRAMME
9.30 Welcome
Andrew Todd, Australian Deputy High Commissioner to the United Kingdom
9.35 Keynote talk – Australia: land and landscape – an Australian perspective
Ron Radford, Director, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
10.30 Morning tea
10.55 Session 1/ Australian art 1800 to today
Intro: Professor Carl Bridge, Head of the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King’s College London
11.00 Australian sublime
Andrew Wilton, former keeper of the British
Collection, Tate, London
11.30 Australian Impressionists as Symbolists
Anne Gray, Head of Australian Art, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
12.00 Modern women: Margaret Preston, Grace Cossington Smith, Dorrit Black, Bea Maddock
Daniel Thomas, Emeritus Director, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
12.30 Longing belonging: Hossein Valamanesh and Imants Tillers
Sarah Thomas, Lecturer, Kingston College, London,
and former curator of paintings, Art Gallery of South
Australia, Adelaide
1.00–1.55 Lunch
1.55 Session 2/ Australian Aboriginal art
Intro: Helen Idle, Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King’s College London
2.00 Country: Aboriginal art
Franchesca Cubillo, Senior Advisor, Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Art, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
2.30 Rediscovering a rare 19th-century bark painting
Philip Jones, Senior Curator, Department of Anthropology, South Australian Museum, Adelaide
3.00 Afternoon tea
3.25 Session 3/ Artist talks
Intro: Ian Henderson, Menzies Centre for Australian
Studies, King’s College London
3.30 Glyphs and the Australian landscape
GW Bot, artist
4.00 Constructed landscapes and capital complexes
Callum Morton, artist and Professor and Head of Fine Arts, Monash University, Melbourne
4.30 Abstracted and idealised landscapes: minimalism and the memorial
Kathy Temin, artist and Associate Professor of Fine Arts, Monash University, Melbourne
5.00 Closing discussion
5.30 Drinks
***
For what seems a rather mean-spirited and blinkered review of the exhibition, here's Adrian Searle in The Guardian. Searle is a former painter and former curator, now chief art critic of The Guardian. He makes some observations that certainly deserve discussion at the symposium. But as he admits, "I am no expert on Australian art"; he is not interested "in what might constitute some sort of Australian artistic identity, because I doubt there is one". Personally, I can't wait to see the exhibition. Seize this rare opportunity to see the paintings of Glover, Roberts, Nolan, Rover Thomas, Ian Fairweather and Queenie Mckenzie, amonsgt other icons of Australian art.
I am only sorry there is nothing by Garry Shead (from the D.H. Lawrence or The Queen series; more Lawrence series images here) or by H J (Harry) Wedge (died 2012). See "Captain Cook Con Man" here (page 48, pdf file)
More positive review in The Telegraph
An expert's view: The oldest civilisation on show: Jeremy Eccles, Arts Desk
Barrie Humphries in The Spectator
Katherine Tyrrell, Making a Mark blog
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