Wednesday, June 30, 2010
The Edge of Brilliance
Millions of U2 fans will already have seen Muse's performance of Where the Streets Have No Name at Glastonbury for which they were joined by the Edge. But it's a performance which anyone with a heart and a pulse should watch this to experience a moment of the beauty and freedom which live music can bring.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Let the Party Begin!
There is nothing virtual about the Glastonbury Festival which now sits alongside the Chelsea Flower Show and the Grand National as one of Britain’s grandest jamborees.
The presence of mobile phones will ensure that YouTubing and Twittering will not stop but the music and merriment which defines this modern pilgrimage is utterly real. Even the trauma of communal loos is considered more bracing than barbaric.
What distinguishes Glastonbury from many of its rivals is its fabled eclecticism. Rather than being a shindig for folk enthusiasts or a fantasia for hip-hop aficionados, it brings together musicians of as many genres as there are colours a chameleon can turn.
The opportunity to be appalled and enchanted by creative works in a single half hour is an essential and enduring attraction of the festival – and one that is shared by the Welsh literary extravaganza staged annually at Hay-on-Wye.
The organisers of each event know that open-minded people who are seasoned with curiosity and goodwill revel in moments of discovery and enjoy the aesthetic adventure of leaving behind comfort zones.
Such celebrations of creativity are built on trust. People trust the organisers to introduce them to artists they may not like but which they will be glad to encounter. Similarly, campers trust their neighbours not to steal their spare pair of hemp dungarees or, more likely at the book bash, nick their panama hats.
Contrast this atmosphere of inclusion and diversity with party conferences which summon only the most zealous members of the country’s political sects.
These tribal gatherings have a unique camaraderie of their own and are charged with a sense of unfolding drama and flashes of mischief.
But what would happen if Britain’s five great parties – all of whom are in power somewhere in the UK – came together for a celebration of the common good?
In the May election the refusal of parties to talk frankly about the scale of the coming pain was maddening. Leaflets were filled with cliches any advertising hack could have dashed off in the time it took for the sugar cube to drop into their afternoon coffee.
But for one weekend each year such bland baloney could be banished. Participants would hear proposals which would terrify and excite, discover who is worthy of trust and who has shares in snake-oil, and leave confident that history does not just happen but is made.
This rediscovery that courage and imagination can shape the future might even be worth Tweeting about.
A Thursday column
The presence of mobile phones will ensure that YouTubing and Twittering will not stop but the music and merriment which defines this modern pilgrimage is utterly real. Even the trauma of communal loos is considered more bracing than barbaric.
What distinguishes Glastonbury from many of its rivals is its fabled eclecticism. Rather than being a shindig for folk enthusiasts or a fantasia for hip-hop aficionados, it brings together musicians of as many genres as there are colours a chameleon can turn.
The opportunity to be appalled and enchanted by creative works in a single half hour is an essential and enduring attraction of the festival – and one that is shared by the Welsh literary extravaganza staged annually at Hay-on-Wye.
The organisers of each event know that open-minded people who are seasoned with curiosity and goodwill revel in moments of discovery and enjoy the aesthetic adventure of leaving behind comfort zones.
Such celebrations of creativity are built on trust. People trust the organisers to introduce them to artists they may not like but which they will be glad to encounter. Similarly, campers trust their neighbours not to steal their spare pair of hemp dungarees or, more likely at the book bash, nick their panama hats.
Contrast this atmosphere of inclusion and diversity with party conferences which summon only the most zealous members of the country’s political sects.
These tribal gatherings have a unique camaraderie of their own and are charged with a sense of unfolding drama and flashes of mischief.
But what would happen if Britain’s five great parties – all of whom are in power somewhere in the UK – came together for a celebration of the common good?
In the May election the refusal of parties to talk frankly about the scale of the coming pain was maddening. Leaflets were filled with cliches any advertising hack could have dashed off in the time it took for the sugar cube to drop into their afternoon coffee.
But for one weekend each year such bland baloney could be banished. Participants would hear proposals which would terrify and excite, discover who is worthy of trust and who has shares in snake-oil, and leave confident that history does not just happen but is made.
This rediscovery that courage and imagination can shape the future might even be worth Tweeting about.
A Thursday column
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The World of Wedding Parties
There is a fine line between matrimony and showbusiness. Anyone who has organised a wedding could easily produce a Broadway show, complete with pyrotechnics, big band numbers and a freestyle wrestling match.
A friend confided that he was approaching his wedding in this spirit because it was the one occasion where he would have “complete creative control”.
And at a wedding in a sun-streaked Dinas Powys last weekend a celebration climaxed with a groom – previously best known for his support for anarchist economics – performing a pitch-perfect (ie, glass-shattering) rendition of the Bee Gees’ Stayin’ Alive. Nobody else was doing karaoke, but this now very happily married man was going to enjoy his every second in the limelight.
Clutching a microphone and singing at a point on a tonal spectrum normally only frequented by bats is an activity which delights multitudes. The Japanese may have been mocked for pioneering the technology in the early 1970s, but is it really so different from standing up at the end of an Edwardian dinner party and reciting Virgil for half an hour?
I would like to think that at UN summits world leaders draw the curtains, flick on the karaoke machine and sing an international medley of greatest hits. Earth would seem a less terrifying place if Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hillary Clinton together belted out Dolly Parton’s Nine to Five, but alas I fear this is unlikely.
Part of the appeal of karaoke is the experience of shedding one’s own identity and for a few minutes getting to “be” Bob Dylan, or Bob the Builder. It is essentially a moment of theatre, and the instinct to act draws on imagination and empathy – two qualities any society should welcome.
A healthy multicultural country abounds with opportunities to gain new perspectives on this shared planet. In the 1980s the experience of “eating with chopsticks” delighted a Britain of fork-users, and the arrival of the curry house has done to the country’s cuisine what the electric guitar did to popular music.
Just as the union of two families in marriage is an event worthy of noisy celebration, so the collision of cultures need not lead to the dilution of identity but can make the boldest colours shine brighter.
It would be a shame worthy of much crying if the rigours of globalisation and the outrages of extremists made us nostalgic for the drab uniformity of Spam-from-a-can monoculturalism. The challenge is to rediscover the glory of cities and nations which are crossroads of civilisations, where hearts beat to the rhythms of instruments we have never imagined.
A Thursday column
A friend confided that he was approaching his wedding in this spirit because it was the one occasion where he would have “complete creative control”.
And at a wedding in a sun-streaked Dinas Powys last weekend a celebration climaxed with a groom – previously best known for his support for anarchist economics – performing a pitch-perfect (ie, glass-shattering) rendition of the Bee Gees’ Stayin’ Alive. Nobody else was doing karaoke, but this now very happily married man was going to enjoy his every second in the limelight.
Clutching a microphone and singing at a point on a tonal spectrum normally only frequented by bats is an activity which delights multitudes. The Japanese may have been mocked for pioneering the technology in the early 1970s, but is it really so different from standing up at the end of an Edwardian dinner party and reciting Virgil for half an hour?
I would like to think that at UN summits world leaders draw the curtains, flick on the karaoke machine and sing an international medley of greatest hits. Earth would seem a less terrifying place if Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hillary Clinton together belted out Dolly Parton’s Nine to Five, but alas I fear this is unlikely.
Part of the appeal of karaoke is the experience of shedding one’s own identity and for a few minutes getting to “be” Bob Dylan, or Bob the Builder. It is essentially a moment of theatre, and the instinct to act draws on imagination and empathy – two qualities any society should welcome.
A healthy multicultural country abounds with opportunities to gain new perspectives on this shared planet. In the 1980s the experience of “eating with chopsticks” delighted a Britain of fork-users, and the arrival of the curry house has done to the country’s cuisine what the electric guitar did to popular music.
Just as the union of two families in marriage is an event worthy of noisy celebration, so the collision of cultures need not lead to the dilution of identity but can make the boldest colours shine brighter.
It would be a shame worthy of much crying if the rigours of globalisation and the outrages of extremists made us nostalgic for the drab uniformity of Spam-from-a-can monoculturalism. The challenge is to rediscover the glory of cities and nations which are crossroads of civilisations, where hearts beat to the rhythms of instruments we have never imagined.
A Thursday column
Monday, June 14, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
The President's Cigar
If you returned home and found a chewed cigar would you conclude:
a) Your cat has too friendly a relationship with the nearest tobacconist?
b) An episode of Columbo has been filmed in your living room?
c) Bill Clinton has been to stay in your absence?
Those of us with a firm grasp on reality or a run of the mill existence would probably not opt for any of these explanations. But earlier this week at Hay-on-Wye I met a warmly entertaining Scotsman named Alan who had just heard Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg interviewed in a giant tent. He wore a black hat and his nearby home had been the former president’s crash-pad during his visit to the town’s literary festival.
This Glaswegian raconteur was full of self-deprecation and modesty. He didn’t get to meet the erstwhile world leader but was happy to think of him playing poker in his house with a posse of secret service agents.
The ex-president’s host has had an impact on world culture that most politicians and religious leaders can only gaze at in bewilderment and envy. When I learned his surname was McGee a geyser gush of memories from the 1990s soaked me in nostalgia.
X-factor's Simon Cowell has a bundle of admirable qualities and his commercial achievements are extraordinary, but go to Alan McGee’s Wikipedia page for a record of the life (so far!) of a true impresario.
As the founder of Creation Records he unleashed a cosmic storm of creativity. He is part of the story of the Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine and Teenage Fanclub.
Here was music conceived in Scotland and Ireland which stirred a new sense of sonic adventure in listeners worldwide. To labour a metaphor, it was as if the grit of urban Britain was turned into pearls within Creation’s oyster.
Then he signed Oasis. Imagine every man, woman and child in Wales holding 18 albums; that’s what sales of upwards of 54 million records looks like.
Life at the centre of such a cultural earthquake might make even the most sensible soul lose their sense of balance.
But on a sunny morning at Hay he seemed better grounded than most lighting rigs. He was famously feted by Tony Blair at Downing St with Oasis’s Noel Gallagher yet he was not in the slightest disappointed at the absence of a post-gig party with Mr Clegg.
“I like going to these things and then just going home,” he said. “I hate after-shows and meets and greets.”
This is a chap for whom it is the game on the pitch, the play on the stage, the track on the album and the actual record in Government which matter – not the hype. And if the road of rock and roll success leads to a house in Wales where a president can kip, what a happy ending.
A Thursday column
a) Your cat has too friendly a relationship with the nearest tobacconist?
b) An episode of Columbo has been filmed in your living room?
c) Bill Clinton has been to stay in your absence?
Those of us with a firm grasp on reality or a run of the mill existence would probably not opt for any of these explanations. But earlier this week at Hay-on-Wye I met a warmly entertaining Scotsman named Alan who had just heard Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg interviewed in a giant tent. He wore a black hat and his nearby home had been the former president’s crash-pad during his visit to the town’s literary festival.
This Glaswegian raconteur was full of self-deprecation and modesty. He didn’t get to meet the erstwhile world leader but was happy to think of him playing poker in his house with a posse of secret service agents.
The ex-president’s host has had an impact on world culture that most politicians and religious leaders can only gaze at in bewilderment and envy. When I learned his surname was McGee a geyser gush of memories from the 1990s soaked me in nostalgia.
X-factor's Simon Cowell has a bundle of admirable qualities and his commercial achievements are extraordinary, but go to Alan McGee’s Wikipedia page for a record of the life (so far!) of a true impresario.
As the founder of Creation Records he unleashed a cosmic storm of creativity. He is part of the story of the Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine and Teenage Fanclub.
Here was music conceived in Scotland and Ireland which stirred a new sense of sonic adventure in listeners worldwide. To labour a metaphor, it was as if the grit of urban Britain was turned into pearls within Creation’s oyster.
Then he signed Oasis. Imagine every man, woman and child in Wales holding 18 albums; that’s what sales of upwards of 54 million records looks like.
Life at the centre of such a cultural earthquake might make even the most sensible soul lose their sense of balance.
But on a sunny morning at Hay he seemed better grounded than most lighting rigs. He was famously feted by Tony Blair at Downing St with Oasis’s Noel Gallagher yet he was not in the slightest disappointed at the absence of a post-gig party with Mr Clegg.
“I like going to these things and then just going home,” he said. “I hate after-shows and meets and greets.”
This is a chap for whom it is the game on the pitch, the play on the stage, the track on the album and the actual record in Government which matter – not the hype. And if the road of rock and roll success leads to a house in Wales where a president can kip, what a happy ending.
A Thursday column
Friday, June 04, 2010
The Mary Jones Walk
In 1800 a 15-year-old girl named Mary Jones who had saved for six years walked more than 26 miles through the wilds of North Wales to buy a Bible in Welsh. When this weaver's daughter came to the home of Thomas Charles (the man in the chair) and discovered the last Bible had been sold she was distraught and broke down in tears. He was able to sell her one he had promised to someone else, but he was so moved by a young woman's hunger for the book in her own language he set wheels in motion which led to the founding of the modern-day Bible Society. Today, 2,479 languages have part of the Bible - leaving 4,421 without a single segment translated. A great galvaniser of people in my local church hit upon the idea of raising some cash for the society at the same time.
We headed up to Bala. The four drive spun by in a blaze of sunshine. The scenary switches around a bend from the lush, rolling, almost-West Country pastures of Montgomeryshire into the austere but Tolkeinesque peaks of Gwynedd.
We spread the walk over two days, and Saturday featured blue skies and summertime vibes. The walls of Mary Jones's house and all of her chapel still stand, as we meandered it was great to yak with friends new and old.
Unlike in so much of the UK, this was not a path beaten by a thousands other tourist-pilgrims that day. One of the most striking aspects of the scenary was the isolation in which farmers and their families live.
Sure, there was a spirit of glee on a sunny day. But to make this trek alone - perhaps aged 15 and carrying six years' of savings - would have been a very lonely trek.
I was so enjoying the conversation that I walked smack into this tree and ended up flat on my back. Actually, it was quite nice to lie down for a while.
The next day, after great food and wine, a smaller group of us continued for the second leg of the trek. The sunshine was gone but in the drizzle different aspects of the terrain were revealed.
We met one farmer and probably a few thousands sheep. Their bleating fills the valleys like the cry of seagulls along a cliff.
It was splendid to be joined for this leg of the hike by Brian, a man with a great sense of direction and a penchant for colourful shirts. He regularly cycles 40 miles a day so this was a simple stroll.
When Bala lake (Llyn Tegid) swung into view it was clear the walk was nearly done and the sun came out.
My toes were glad to stop walking; they had turned the colour of a Christmas reindeer's nose. But my lungs were full of air sweeter than anything Chanel can put in a bottle. Brian and I drove home and left the Mary Jones's trail to the isolation she ventured into with a clutch of coins and a heart of hope.
A Sticky Jam
As you may be aware, last month we had an election in the UK. We don't have quite the convergence of politics and celebrity as in the US, but when comedian Eddie Izzard dropped into a sawdust-sprayed pub to advance the cause of the Labour party things got surreal and quite fun. As with my darling sister-in-law, Heather, he seemed quite concerned by my habit of leaving the protective plastic sticker on electronic screens. He made such a fuss I let him whip off the one on my dictatphone. This didn't go down too well with Heather. "What?!" she said. "You let Eddie Izzard take it off and you didn't let me!?" Ah, it's a testament to the persuasive power of a man who knows how to make 20,000 people laugh about jam.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Astounded by Budapest
I knew about the Danube. I knew Budapest was supposed to be a beautiful city. But what I didn't know was that this metropolis has so much more than grand history and great architecture to its name. It is the friendliest capital I've ever explored.
Yes, there are great tall buildings and spectacularly ornate streetlights. It has all the drama of a fine European city.
And there is art and culture which can mesmerise and astound. A gallery facing Heroes' Square has a tremendous collection of El Grecos with all their comic book drama.
But just a short walk away is a park where families wander in the evening sun.
Right across from the famed Szechenyi baths is a funfair.
There's no dull middlebrow in this city, just a zeal for fun - whether at the opera or splashing about in the Gellert baths.
Even this art deco wonderland is no po-faced spa. As well as boasting rooms of deep baths kept at a luxuriant 38 degrees, it also has a big wave machine to entertain anyone ready to jump in.
In a truly great city, the delights you encounter on the way between destinations prove just as memorable as wherever you were originally heading. Ali, my wonderful travelling companion, and I stumbled into the Museum of Applied Arts because we couldn't walk past a building with such an ostentatiously green roof and not look inside.
The exhibits (furniture and Ottoman carpets) are fascinating, but the real star of the show is the building with geometric arches and stained glass.
Millions of tourists must pass through Budapest each year but visitors are treated neither like parasites nor an infinite economic resource. In every cafe we were flashed winsome smiles and you only had to take out a map in public to have people coming up, wanting to speak English and help.
While wandering through sweltering streets in the ancient Buda section of the city we popped into the home of Amerigo Tot.
The coolness of the small sculptor garden was as refreshing as iced tea in the shade.
From an upper window you could see the parliament building.
It is a Puginesque fantasy and a cheeky rip-off of the Palace of Westminster.
You can catch a glimpse of its 96ft-high spire from almost anywhere in Budapest.
But the true soul of the city is the river which runs through it.
Whether night or day it stirs with the promise of the adventure it carries in its currents.
But this is also a city which has known the truest of tragedies.
The sculpted shoes are a memorial to Jews who were shot into the river. A quarter of the city once followed the faith.
Before the horrors of the Holocaust visited Budapest, the community had been flourishing and its confidence was shown in its gleaming synagogue.
There were once plans to build a Jewish alhambra which would celebrate brotherly love.
Instead, there is now a memorial garden with a metal weeping willow.
This is not a place of forgetting.
But nor is it just a monument for mourning.
As Reuben, a Jewish tour guide originally from Brooklyn, explained, there is now a community of 100,000 and the restored synagogue is packed to the proverbial rafters.
The beauty of the stained glass shines with the colours of a culture Europe nearly lost but will always need, where learning and fraternity are celebrated.
These are happy days for Budapest. The Soviet star has been taken down from the Parliament and you can still taste the sweet liberty which swirled across Europe in 1989. Its people are happy to be free and glad to share the riches of their city with you. A new chapter has started.
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