Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
By The Pond
You can almost feel the breeze from the wings of dragon flies... photo by Shirley Tolliday.
MILESTONES JAZZ 4 JULY
ANOTHER ECLECTIC FROM THE 3 B's AT MILESTONES JAZZ CLUB
The next concert at Milestones Jazz Club on Sunday 5 July heralds the return of one of the most popular bands to appear at the club - The 3 B's featuring Reg Webb.
The 3 B's are made up of three respected figures on the East Anglian music scene that make no apology for their eclectic mixture of styles and influences.
The charismatic and intensely soulful Reg Webb (vocals/keyboards), Lincoln Anderson (bass) and Andrew Dowding (drums) are all accomplished musicians that fuse anything from standards by Duke Ellington, the modernism of Herbie Hancock to the grooves of Stevie Wonder or Steely Dan.
As individual players they have worked with established names as diverse as John McLaughlin, Shirley Bassey, Lenny Kravitz, Joe Pass and Roland Kirk, but it is with their own simmering mix of modern jazz - jazz standards, blues and full blooded electric fusion - that they enjoy themselves the most.
As well as Reg's wonderfully expressive voice, the bands genuinely exciting music contains all the elements of a great improvising group - a constant supply of fresh ideas, shifting rhythms and a sense of bluesy urgency to hold everyone's attention.
The band will be performing a number of songs from their CD, 'Blind, Black and Breathless', along with a few newer pieces. Listen to the music of The 3 B's at http://www.milestonesjazzclub.co.uk All Milestones gigs are held on the first Sunday of every month and take place at Hotel Hatfield, Esplanade, Lowestoft with the doors opening at 8pm. Admission - £7 / £6 (concession).
The next concert at Milestones Jazz Club on Sunday 5 July heralds the return of one of the most popular bands to appear at the club - The 3 B's featuring Reg Webb.
The 3 B's are made up of three respected figures on the East Anglian music scene that make no apology for their eclectic mixture of styles and influences.
The charismatic and intensely soulful Reg Webb (vocals/keyboards), Lincoln Anderson (bass) and Andrew Dowding (drums) are all accomplished musicians that fuse anything from standards by Duke Ellington, the modernism of Herbie Hancock to the grooves of Stevie Wonder or Steely Dan.
As individual players they have worked with established names as diverse as John McLaughlin, Shirley Bassey, Lenny Kravitz, Joe Pass and Roland Kirk, but it is with their own simmering mix of modern jazz - jazz standards, blues and full blooded electric fusion - that they enjoy themselves the most.
As well as Reg's wonderfully expressive voice, the bands genuinely exciting music contains all the elements of a great improvising group - a constant supply of fresh ideas, shifting rhythms and a sense of bluesy urgency to hold everyone's attention.
The band will be performing a number of songs from their CD, 'Blind, Black and Breathless', along with a few newer pieces. Listen to the music of The 3 B's at http://www.milestonesjazzclub.co.uk All Milestones gigs are held on the first Sunday of every month and take place at Hotel Hatfield, Esplanade, Lowestoft with the doors opening at 8pm. Admission - £7 / £6 (concession).
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
RECESSION CITY
Here's a report of car booting on the otherside of the country. I'm sure it must be... Thanks to WL.
How is the carbooting going? - we go to the one over the road. On a wet day it looks like eastern europe, amd most of the buyers are eastern european but its the locals who look eastern european - pre 1960!
We wade through the dirt, mould, stained clothes, coffee cups with coffee still in.... We do our bit for charity though. There is a cornish man who always looks dirty, looks like he has been down a mine (we call him Dirt Boy). He gets his stock from the local dump. It is really crusty but now & again we have to buy from him otherwise we get a guilt trip.
There's a few like that. Some do carboots without cars; some come on bikes with home made go-carts attached as a pretend trailer; some load up prams with bags and do a floor spread on a blanket; and there are plenty of crazy mamas too! Sometimes we see whole families who look like cross overs between freddie west types and leather faces! They shout out in their weird language coz they've not ventured outside their own family - ever.
Yeah, carboots can be surreal - the ones near us are the most weird but now and again we go to some a bit more upmarket - where the middleclass go - but we miss the dirt and bikes with go carts attached...
Sunday, June 21, 2009
St. Benedicts St. Fair Today
A loud and lively scene from today's excellent St. Benedicts Street Fair, Norwich, today.
Friday, June 19, 2009
REDACTION BLUES
The newspapers gave me a bit of a fright this morning. I thought, over night, the UK had witnessed a near revolution via "red action" but this was only "redaction" after all. Phew. Redaction is the blacking out of information, the word given life by the publication of all MPs' expense claims yesterday. Nearly all the claims have been redacted whereby the details of many of those expenses are missing. Ridiculous now of course because the Telegraph has released these details over the last six weeks.
The MPs' expense claims are a scandal; and this primary school cover up of information - already in the public domain - alludes to the collective intelligence of our political elite - zilch! Correctly the public is outraged by our MPs arrogance in their mischief; in their blatant misuse of our taxes to feather-nest their lives and careers. However, worse still are MPs who hold other posts in private companies and thereby make a mockery of lobbying. Indeed, these paid and unpaid posts MUST be banned because this is "questions for cash" once again, where MPs represent business interests over their constituency interests, which is a direct assault on democracy.
REDACTION HITS POETRY!
If political redaction wasn't bad enough, look what it's done to my online poem!
A Public Message
Here's a message I found at the end of my road this morning. Not a message for me, I hasten...
I'm Melting
It may look like a gas heater to you but I'm well chuffed with this sun lamp. Summer is coming and I've got to look the part this year...
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Don't Be Blind 2 The Blind
It's important we're not blind to the blind. Here is a notice that informs the sighted of those with visual impairments within a location; and here is a sign which informs the blind that they're blind within this locality - if they're thus informed of this notice by those less visually impaired or others or those who can see fully... This maybe a Blind Spot.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The Path
Though I studied art in the early 1980s I had never completed a painting on canvas. Here is my first, nearly forty years later! Painting is my new path and the path I want to pursue before I drop.
Unlike watercolour painting on paper, the option to file away or tear up to use in collage fashion doesn't exist. The painting has to be worked over and over until it has somekind of unity. This painting changed three times. It is based on a study of a sort of amphitheatre space in Old Catton Park, Norwich. I decided the centre of the work was weak and changed it into a Victorian pond (also loosely based on the Catton Park pond). Finally, as the quarry-like ruin began to take shape, the pond surrounds turned into a raised but ruined path - leading nowhere or out of the painting.
Though I will be drawing and painting on site within landscapes, I want to continue with landscape of the imagination, for what I've found through watercolour painting and now acrylic painting is a means of working through emotions rather than cerebral ideas (though these are ever present in the background). Also, at this stage, I'm happy exploring the compositional elements of painting without a thought of postmodern notions which supposedly negate the act of painting images in particular.
However, paint is a construct and should never be a snap shot of reality when photography is brilliant at that application. Indeed, the problem in working from photographs in paint is that space and depth are necessarily flattened in a photograph. I wouldn't make a painting of a street scene which can be brilliantly rendered through a camera. Of course, all are tools and photographs (I've taken quite a few) can act as a valuable resource.
I've chosen acrylic because a) I'm slightly allergic to turpentine and b) more acrylic paint tubes turn up at car boot sales! Indeed, the canvas, brushes and paints for this first canvas painting were purchased at local car boots...
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Newsnight Tonight with Tony Wright MP
You'd think Tony Wright MP would be kind of apologetic about MPs' expenses exploitation and worst Labour election results in history - letting in the fascist BNP by default. Not a shudder. He just crowed on more and more with the BrownBliar post reality speak about rejigging "democracy." He doesn't know or care what democracy is. Well, on a gravy train full of gravy boats you wouldn't, would you - unless you're an ordinary person (err, that's 55 million of us in the UK - ignored - even after elections!)
Even union leader Simpson was gobsmacked by the political nonsense speak of this politician and the Blair researcher sidekick. We need jobs, investment in manufacturing, council housing and proper youth services and ALL THE MONEY THEY SPENT TO BAIL OUT THE BANKERS WHO BANKRUPTED US SPENT ON US!
Even union leader Simpson was gobsmacked by the political nonsense speak of this politician and the Blair researcher sidekick. We need jobs, investment in manufacturing, council housing and proper youth services and ALL THE MONEY THEY SPENT TO BAIL OUT THE BANKERS WHO BANKRUPTED US SPENT ON US!
ps - this is THE Tony Wright MP not the OTHER Tony Wright MP!
textVISUAL online magazine
On June 15 next I will be publishing online the first issue of textVISUAL, a magazine of texts and images which sometimes overlap and occasionally melt into each other. It will be produced three times a year.
*
Featured poets and artists for this first issue, in no particular order:-
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Martin Stannard
Ian Seed
Peter Hughes
Claire Hamburger
Tim Lenton
Michael Fenton
Lisa D'Onofrio
Mark Sargeant
Gerald Nason
Linda Chapman
Rupert Mallin
*
Links coming up here shortly.
Voicing Visions on the Road
The Voicing Visions collaborative exhibition run and organised by the Norwich 20 group is on the road. This excellent venture enabled scores of N20 artists to work with up to 50 local poets. The exhibition forms part of this year's Welborne Festival which runs this weekend, 12th and 13th. Details here.
Not only is there an exhibition of these works and writings, there's a book and DVD too. The book and DVD (with a foreward by award winning poet George Szirtes) can be posted to you for £15. Full details voicingvisions@gmail.com.
Not only is there an exhibition of these works and writings, there's a book and DVD too. The book and DVD (with a foreward by award winning poet George Szirtes) can be posted to you for £15. Full details voicingvisions@gmail.com.
THE EMPEROR'S CLOTHES
Latest news from the Prime Minister's chums is that he has seen the light! He will be more open and transparent and listening and compassionate and.... Err, wasn't Gordon Brown Blair's chancellor before becoming PM? In the last 12 years poverty, particularly child poverty, in the UK has risen. A report in April put the UK 24th in Europe in its child welfare league - 24th out of 29 countries, with children fairing better in Poland than here! Brown was not just culpable in making the poor poorer, he was responsible. This is why Labour supporters want shot of him! He maybe telling us he's suddenly cuddly and compassionate but voters want actions not sickly lying words.
THE MAD HATTERS TEA PARTY
Imagine, you've just taken your party into its worst ever election defeats (plural) and your colleagues are resigning around you because of expenses scandals and your failing leadership; and you gather together the entire parliamentary party for the wake. But it's not a wake - it's a party with middling and old age men shouting hoorah, clapping, banging on tables and hero-hugging you.... This was Gordon Brown and the nutters of our government last night!
It was terrible to hear Jeremy Corbyn MP - a man I've much admired - putting down the unrest as a "Blairite plot" on Gordon and the Brownites. Come on, Blair and Brown were and are synonymous; and Blair was never able to bring Post privatisation to the table like Brown! So even the best of MPs is now calling for style over substance!
Only in our Parliament could such failure be so applauded (oh, and in our banks' boardrooms of course!)
To paraphrase Tony Benn: "you enter parliament to change the world but it ends up that parliament changes you." This is why Benn left parliament to enter "politics." I hope this is what Norwich North MP Ian Gibson does too.
It was terrible to hear Jeremy Corbyn MP - a man I've much admired - putting down the unrest as a "Blairite plot" on Gordon and the Brownites. Come on, Blair and Brown were and are synonymous; and Blair was never able to bring Post privatisation to the table like Brown! So even the best of MPs is now calling for style over substance!
Only in our Parliament could such failure be so applauded (oh, and in our banks' boardrooms of course!)
To paraphrase Tony Benn: "you enter parliament to change the world but it ends up that parliament changes you." This is why Benn left parliament to enter "politics." I hope this is what Norwich North MP Ian Gibson does too.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Not as Woody Guthrie Imagined...
This is a fascinating art catalogue of Agricultural Landscapes. Though it touches on the struggles of farm labourers (the nobility of labour et al), this fascinates because landowners have maintained, through art, a romantic and nostalgic view of turning a sod.
The Centre Cannot Hold
There should be some shame faced Labour Party MPs and MEPs this morning, for the collapse in the party's Euro vote let two BNP fascists win seats in the European Parliament. The BNP didn't increase their overall vote since the 2004 election, nor did their share of the vote rise but, outside London, the Labour vote collapsed.
The obvious reason for this collapse (only 35% of the eligible population voted) was the helter-skelter of the MPs expenses scandal - Labour and Tory MPs lining their pockets from our taxes. However, historically, the Labour vote has been in decline (Blair the exception to the rule) and the underlying reason is betrayal of their constituents decade upon decade. Labour purportedly represents ordinary working people but inevitably represents big business. This is because the Labour Party was born over 100 years ago out of the "bowels of the TUC." That is, at the turn of the previous century, union bosses required political representation to negotiate between workers and their bosses, whereby workers could be accommodated within the interests of big business. Of course, this was an advance for working people and some reforms like the NHS and the Welfare State remain with us (just about) while others - like nationalisation - have been dismantled in the interests of big business and the market.
Labour has very little room in which to manoeuvre: its proposed reforms (sick), like the sell off of Royal Mail and public service cuts, are attacks on working people. A Labour Government could be brave and introduce a progressive income tax but so many of the party's MPs have done nicely out of big business lobbyists and paid executive positions on the boards of big companies that the Labour Party will never introduce such a root and branch reform.
This means the difference between the Labour Party and the Conservatives is now style over substance. The leading question is not Will Brown's departure reform Labour and its chances at the polls? But Can the Labour Party reform itself into a party that more truly represents those who vote for it? Only real catastrophe could or would enable Labour to do that. However, can working people go through that mirage again? I doubt it.
Another party of the Left has to be formed in Britain - a party built at the grassroots; among union branches not by union bosses; a party with the intent of the Chartists, with totally accountable representatives.
It is a pity the Left is so fractured and I think it was a real mistake that George Galloway's Respect Party didn't fight the Euro Elections, instead backing Green candidates in certain areas. While Respect must imagine it can build quickly to fight the General Election, the crisis is such that an election might be called this week. Also, Respect doesn't seem grassroots enough to pose an opposite pole of attraction to the fascist BNP. Quite simply, the centre cannot hold.
Yet, however fragmented the Left in Britain, there are exciting left wing models in France, Germany and Italy. Indeed, closer to home, a hitherto small group, 'People Before Profit,' did fantastically well in Ireland's local elections last Friday.
For some the Greens pose as a real left alternative and I voted Green in Norwich but there needs to be an organisation with organic relations with the unions and the labour movement - to pose a real alternative to all those traditional Labour voters who no longer vote.
The obvious reason for this collapse (only 35% of the eligible population voted) was the helter-skelter of the MPs expenses scandal - Labour and Tory MPs lining their pockets from our taxes. However, historically, the Labour vote has been in decline (Blair the exception to the rule) and the underlying reason is betrayal of their constituents decade upon decade. Labour purportedly represents ordinary working people but inevitably represents big business. This is because the Labour Party was born over 100 years ago out of the "bowels of the TUC." That is, at the turn of the previous century, union bosses required political representation to negotiate between workers and their bosses, whereby workers could be accommodated within the interests of big business. Of course, this was an advance for working people and some reforms like the NHS and the Welfare State remain with us (just about) while others - like nationalisation - have been dismantled in the interests of big business and the market.
Labour has very little room in which to manoeuvre: its proposed reforms (sick), like the sell off of Royal Mail and public service cuts, are attacks on working people. A Labour Government could be brave and introduce a progressive income tax but so many of the party's MPs have done nicely out of big business lobbyists and paid executive positions on the boards of big companies that the Labour Party will never introduce such a root and branch reform.
This means the difference between the Labour Party and the Conservatives is now style over substance. The leading question is not Will Brown's departure reform Labour and its chances at the polls? But Can the Labour Party reform itself into a party that more truly represents those who vote for it? Only real catastrophe could or would enable Labour to do that. However, can working people go through that mirage again? I doubt it.
Another party of the Left has to be formed in Britain - a party built at the grassroots; among union branches not by union bosses; a party with the intent of the Chartists, with totally accountable representatives.
It is a pity the Left is so fractured and I think it was a real mistake that George Galloway's Respect Party didn't fight the Euro Elections, instead backing Green candidates in certain areas. While Respect must imagine it can build quickly to fight the General Election, the crisis is such that an election might be called this week. Also, Respect doesn't seem grassroots enough to pose an opposite pole of attraction to the fascist BNP. Quite simply, the centre cannot hold.
Yet, however fragmented the Left in Britain, there are exciting left wing models in France, Germany and Italy. Indeed, closer to home, a hitherto small group, 'People Before Profit,' did fantastically well in Ireland's local elections last Friday.
For some the Greens pose as a real left alternative and I voted Green in Norwich but there needs to be an organisation with organic relations with the unions and the labour movement - to pose a real alternative to all those traditional Labour voters who no longer vote.
***
Since I wrote this piece I understand there is an initiative to form somekind of 'united front' electoral pact on the left. I live in hope... 9/6/09
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
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