Brian Haw (1949-2011)

A sad choice to make this week. I was going to talk about Clarence Clemons stalwart of the E Street Band a giant with a giant sound backing Bruce through some of his greatest moments - but there are a lot of people missing the big guy tonight so I thought Id write aboot another hero, one rather less well known certinly away from these shores...






Reading his obit in the Indie today he was called "Britain's conscience" and I certainly think that that the guy probably had more basic human decency in his little finger than the yes men careerists in the House who decided that ingratiating their way into Blairs good books was rather more important than the lives of both Afghan and Iraqi civilians not to mention the lives of British service personnel.






He actually started his protest bfore 9/11 to protest the embargo of medical supplies into Saddams Iraq and continued until receently until he was diagnosed with cancer and underwent treatment in Berlin. As a very public and sometimes lone figure of protest he bore the brunt of some spectacularly odious comment from such delightful cretins as Boris Johnson and David Cameron who announced that he "believed in demonstrations but there are limits" not to mention the numerous attempts by those brave boys in blue to move him along.






He was voted most inspiring political figure in the Channel 4 political awards not that there was a whole lot of competition - identikit suits both a delightful shade of blue labour.









Another nail in the coffin of dissent in this country

Ill met by moonlight

Well it had to come I guess. Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor was after all 96 years old. And they were 96 years well lived.
I suspect that he'll be best remembered for his wartime exploits on the German occupied island of Crete, events that he never wrote about although they are the stuff of a Boys Own annual. The Powell and Pressburger film of his adventures show their trademark love of location, a love shared by Pat. The tale of the abduction and evacuation of a nazi general is barely credible but happen it did and bizarrely the events were very much in character.
His was an educated mind but an academic failiure culminating in an assignation with a greengrocers daughter that got him expelled from Kings College Canturbury. His family believed the army would be a fitting career but a peacetime army wasnt for him and so he decided that he would tramp from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople across a continent overshadowed by the upcoming war. A Europe now long vanished, noble families, relics of the Austro-Hungarian Empire swept away in the flood of post-war communism.
His two volumes of travel memoirs A time of gifts and Between the woods and the water are extraordinary - dense, lyrical, erudite and utterly bewitching. He set off in 1932 with an allowance of £5 a month and via - hostels and monasteries, sheep byres and castles reached Constantinople on New Years Day 1935. Unfortunately the final leg of his journey will now never be detailed. He spent his 20th birthday in a monastery on Mount Athos and a month later took part in a cavalry charge suppressing a rebellion in Greece. He fell in love both with Greece where he spent many years and also a Romanian princess. On the outbreak of war he returned and joined the Intellegence Corps were he was employed as a liasion officer with the greeks fighting the Italians to a standstill and then once the Germans invaded being evacuated to Crete where he fought a guerilla war.
He published his first book The Travellers Tree in 1950 a recital of his travels in the Caribbean after the war but his love was on the Mediterranean and Greence in particular and he lived the rest of his life in the sun - soaking up all he could of life. He wrote in long hand only very recently adopting a manual typewriter which mirrored a lengthy writing process where each word was measured before use.
He married in 1968 but leaves no children.

Sir Henry Cole (1808-1882)

So back to our London trip - M had expressed a wish to visit the V&A which due to its being on the wrong side of town tends to lose out to the British Museum on our cultural wanderings - but we thought that wed stretch our legs and visit as there was an exhibition of contemporary South African photography which was taken in after a brief wander around the lovely South Asian and Middle Eastern rooms and a cuppa in the rather lovely tiled dining hall. Its a really interesting glimpse of a society in flux. Whenever I look at some of the abuses of power going on around he world I think of the fact that nothing lasts forever and that in my lifetime Ive seen the fall of the wall and the end of apartheid in South Africa.


Opposite the V&A is the Kazakh embassy on which is the plaque for Sir Henry Cole. Cole was a member of the Society of Arts and an early proponent of memorial plaques. He was a civil servant who began his working live at the age of 15 in the National Records Office where he rose to the position of Assistant Keeper. From 1837 to 1840 he worked under Sir Roland Hill and helped introduce the penny Post - hes even credited with designing the worlds first christmas card. He visited the 1849 11th Quinquennial in Paris and inspired by it secured Queen Victorias backing of the Great Exhibition of 1851 which championed British industrial supremacy. The financial success of the exhibition meant thata significant surplus would fund the development of the South Kensington / Albertopolis development which he to a large extend supervised. He was the first direector of the V&A or at least the Museum of Ornmental Art as was and so was responsible for one of the great treasure houses of the world. at some point Ill have sort out some listing of museums but the V&A is certainly something...

Mes que un club

Congratulations to Barcelona. There are plenty of op eds around weighing in on the whole greatest club team in the world debate and of course its a non argument changes in the game, in the way its played, in technology measn that the whole debate is redundant.
All I'll say is that I watching the final with a huge smile on my face. Watching football being played the way it should be - with a smile - a fierce joy.
We went into town on saturday and "enjoyed" the spectacle of the pissed up obnoxious Man Utd fans in Covent Garden which added an additional sweetness to the evenings events.
Todays plaque is again on the wall of the Hobbs Pavilion on Parkers Piece commemorating the first game of codified game of football played on that hallowed ground in 1863. And from there well it is the worlds game - wherever you go there a bunch of kids kicking a ball around - its a touchstone which is why I always try to take a footie shirt on hols with me. Yes its been misused - a thinly veiled excuse from division, hate, racism, sectarianism and nationalism but then a team like Barca come along and blow that negativity away. Bravo Barca!

Edward Hardwicke (1932-2011)

Very happy to see that Martin Freeman won Supporting Actor in this years BAFTAs. Sherlock was a real highlight of last years viewing.
Wittyand intellegent with enough little nods to Conan Doyle while providing enough smiles with the introduction of technology and morals to make it relevent to a modern audience. But what of course makes it click is the chemistry between Holmes and Watson.
Rathbone and Bruce had it, Breet and Hardwicke (and Burke) had it, Cumberbatch and Freeman have it, Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law....I dont think so.
A purist was wittering on about the fact that this modern retelling wasnt up to much in comparison with the older period stories (although it should be said that the Rathbone movies have very little to do with the Conan Doyler originals) and referred to Edward hardwicke in the past tense.
Sadly he was correct at least on that point. Edward Hardwicke died on 16th May. The Brett/Hardwicke/Burke series I think is pretty much seminal as a faithful recounting of the original Conan Doyle stories. I think I prefer Hardwicke's Watson - theres a warmth there to complment Holmes' cold intellect but theres also a resoluteness a grit there without which Holmes would be a hopeless dilletente.
:o(

Martin a Beckett Boyd (1893-1972)

Spotted in Little Eversden on the Oxfam walk on Sunday which came as a bit of a surprise Little Eversden being well the name rather gives it away doesnt it? Not a thriving metropolis exactly. Still it was home to a rather nice village hall eqipped with both cake and tea both rather needed after somewhere around 17 and a half miles of trudging. I indulgd in ginger and rhubarb and ginger and very nice they were too. Kept me going until I got back to Wimpole Hall a rather nice 17th century house now in the hands of the National Trust. It was the second return to the house grounds Oxfam deciding that their three walks would all begin and end at the house. At that point M passed me on the way into the houses grounds and I managed to talk her into accompany me on the last leg of the days meanderings - a 4 mile walk around the estate. We had to do it at a fair pace as Oxfam would be closing up the finish marquee at 5.30. We eventually got in at 5.20. Whew! I'd managed to miss the first bus from Drummer Street as the Oxfam sign was happily posted at the wrong bus stop. Not the only bit of misorganization as a marshal went AWOL on the 4 mile walk which meant that we just kept going following the signs rather than turning right climbing the hill which wasnt really needed at that stage of the day.
Anyhoo its done and apart from a fairly messed up right foot - due to the lack of rain the ground is rock hard - even on the stages of the walk in the extensive woodlands theres no give at all. With ruts and whatnot its rather lkike walking on corrugated iron. Still a couple of hundred pounds for Oxfam so HUZZAh all over that.
Anyhoo Mr Boyds name was inscribed on the gable end of a venerable thatched cottage in Little Eversden - a life by all accounts blighted by the first world war....far from the only one of course

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)

It seems kind of appropriate on today of all days to mark the plaque on the Ely Tourist Board office - the one which reads "The home of Oliver Cromwell and his family. Cromwell rose to power during the English civil wars, to become 'Lord Protector of the Commonwealth' during England's brief period as a republic in the mid 17th Century. The Cromwell family lived in Ely for some 10 years from 1636 to 1646.

We spent the day at the coast far away from the TV and the radio. In fact besides the occasional viewing of red, white and blue as we zoomed through the Suffolk countryside it was a day like any other thankfully.

For the last week whenever the subject has appeared on the news -- and it HAS appeared on the news the remote control has been utilised.

Don't get me wrong as a couple I have no problem with the happy couple - its the hoohah surrounding it - the servile, forelock tugging dullards lining the route. And a hint here if you fight a war of independence to rid yourselves from the tyranny of inbreds please dont a couple of hundred years later turn up swooning about the romance of the day.

Anyhoo after a stop at Tescos I ended up driving to Southwold. The weather had cleared and we arrived in the middle of the day and after a 50p well spent in the amusement arcade on pinball we dined in the cafe before wandering up the pier - M indulged her love of beachhuttery and we had a go on the weird and wacky entertainment booths - http://www.underthepier.com/10_current_machines.htm - I did Test your nerve and M did The Doctor before we headed into town for a wander and a couple of purchases at Nutters Deli nom nom and a couple of oohs at a couple of cracking Kombis.

Note to self - dont drink Aspalls after bubblegum flabour ice cream. Hey ho.