Cocker n’ear to this…

When I were nobbut a lad, at t’university in the halcyon 60s, on many a Sunday afternoon, as I recall, I would listen to John Peel, then a mere DJ who had not yet become the national treasure of ‘Home Truths’ days.  One of the best things about JP’s programme was that you couldn’t predict what he would play.  I was then unfamiliar with the world of classical music, and I can still remember hearing, for the first time, the now ‘very-poppy and devalued by repetition’ Adagio in G by Albinoni, and possibly also the Pachelbel Canon (I can remember, but not that well).  This, in those days, was daring stuff to play on Radio One.

I have recollected these things, because I’ve recently discovered the contemporary inheritor of JP’s mantle who – if the BBC box clever – is also set to assume his ‘national treasure’ status.  And I want you all to know about him – in these connected days, even those of you in the ex-colonies may be able to tune your computerised cat’s whiskers to point in the right direction.

By now, you’re desperate to know of whom I write; be still, child – everything comes to s/he who waits.  It is of Cocker I speak; not Joe of Sheffield with the amazing rasping voice, but Jarvis (also of Sheffield but, we are assured by those who know these things, no relation), formerly of Pulp, and also famous/notorious for doing to Michael Jackson what many of us wanted to do at the time.  The programme which has led me to this conclusion is broadcast every Sunday afternoon at 4pm on 6Music.  I never listened to 6Music until the BBC announced that they wanted to close it.  Then I thought I had better find out what all the fuss was about, and I realised that here was a music station for grown-ups – and that JC’s programme in particular was wonderfully unpredictable and eclectic.  If you doubt me, just look at the running order for a recent edition of ‘Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service’.   It includes John Betjeman and Dylan Thomas as well as the Beatles, Lou Reed and Van Morrison.  Most extraordinary of all, there’s the wonderful ‘Diary of a Taxi Driver‘ from the soundtrack to the Martin Scorsese film, Taxi Driver (“You talkin’ to me??...”).

All this is great stuff, and knowing the demographic of my readers, I thought that, unguided, you might not light upon it; it’s definitely worth an hour or two of your head and ears.  And thank goodness they saved 6Music, at least until the next time.

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When queueing for fish and chips, pay regard to Confucius.

We were in Whitby a weekend or two ago, for a stroll on the beach and fish and chips at the venerable Magpie Cafe.   The cafe now has its own take-away place just next door, outside which my daughter spotted this sign (see below).  After much reflection and internal debate (there – a brief insight into my tortured mind), I have concluded, with piercing insight, that the signwriter, having run out of space, decided that the only way s/he could get the message across was to communicate solely by ideogram (in this case, an arrow) rather then by the words ‘in this direction‘ followed by said arrow.  If you have a better, or even a more amusing, explanation, please do us all a favour and share it…

Meanwhile, I have been struggling to find an appropriate caption for this photo, and can only resort, as so often, to the sagacity of Confucius, who I am sure almost certainly must have written something along the lines of  ‘It is a wise man who, when signwriting, first measures the space he will need before cutting out his piece of paper’.  (I apologise for the gender-specificity, but Confucius was like that)

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Amongst lovely things

That awesome thing (see previous post)…  I visited a new School in New Earswick, the garden village created by Joseph Rowntree in the early years of the 20^th century.  The school, which carries JR’s name, has been rebuilt, and opened last term.  It is stunning – light and colour are everywhere.   It was Plato who wrote that The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things. Well, Joseph Rowntree School is a lovely thing –I’m sure it’s being monitored and evaluated to bits, but I find it inconceivable that an environment as spirit-lifting as that wouldn’t affect, in a benign fashion, the demeanour of those who spend time there — students and teachers.   I’m used to visiting places where the advance publicity doesn’t quite match the reality; this was an exception.   It’s particularly interesting to me that the school head was very closely involved in the design, choice of colours etc.  But there is a sad aspect to all this — the school has been the object of study and consultation by many others who have spent years planning towards a new school, and who want to learn from the experience of JR School.  But of course many if not most of those will, despite all that work, have now learned that their plans will come to nothing, as the schools building programme has been all but axed.

And while I’m writing, Id like to add an apology: when I started this blog, I intended those who signed up to read it, to get an email with a link whenever there was a new posting.  What I didn’t want was for the post itself to be sent in an email – first, because I wanted people to choose when or whether they read the post, and second, because the posts look much nicer in the context of the full blog.  I now have a topflight team of technical advisers working on this problem, and hopefully they will sort it soon (sound of SB stretching and yawning as he wakes up and the dream fades…).

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Ambridge, Corbett and a Cliff — awesome!

A relative of mine was sitting in a conference in USA a year or two back, and was asked to move his chair, in the following terms: “If you could move your chair, sir, that would be really awesome”.    As my relative pointed out, and with due respect to any transatlantic citizens who have – either deliberately or by happy chance – lighted on this blog, up with this kind of thing we should not put, because otherwise we will have no words to hand when we come across something which really does ‘inspire awe or wonder’ (which is the dictionary definition).

I find myself ruminating on this matter as a result of wanting to use the word in what was intended to be the real subject of this post, before I interrupted myself and went off at a tangent.  Before this descends into something vaguely like a Ronnie Corbett monologue (example here…), let me return to the subject (or, as my old maths master, Phil Molloy, used to say when, having taken the class on a scenic diversion, he wanted us boys to get back to the maths “Back to Ambridge…” — Ambridge, for those not familiar with British middle class cultural life, is an English village where country-folk live out their everyday stories. There are frequent reports about it on the radio, and some people think it’s fictional; more fool them).   So: here goes — the experience which brought the word ‘awesome’ to mind was … oh, damn, I’ve got to go now.  But I will tell you all about it next time.  (That is what I believe is known in Ambridge as ‘a cliff hanger‘.  Maybe).

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