I finally got to look around inside St Peter and St Paul, Wisbech, earlier today. Last time I tried, I’d just missed closing time (2pm!). This time I got there at 1.55pm. They were open (just!). And they had a school event on.
So I wasn’t totally free to snap away as I pleased. But the photos here convey some of what was most immediately appealing. One thing this place is strong on is stained glass.
I had work in the later afternoon. But I went to Wisbech early, specifically to visit this church. Then I got waylaid, visiting CGL, a charity in Wisbech, based near the church, who helped me during my difficulties of this last year and a half, or thereabouts
As the galleries attest. The biggest attractions of points of interest, to me at any rate, are the stained glass windows. There might be more to unearth?
I’ll have to re-visit, well before closing time, and when they’re not doing a school event. Anyhoo, with that in mind, I left…
I got this book many years ago. And I’ve always loved it. It’s now just one of three or more books I have dedicated to this most excellent of jazz labels.
What special about this one – and there’s a second volume I’m keen to acquire as well – is the decent number of large reproductions of album covers, near enough full original size. Plus lots more at smaller sizes.
I’m thinking of buying a second copy of this first volume, purely for cutting out pages and framing a load of them. Indeed, I shall do so. Though I’d better put in an extra shift or two to raise the funds.
I’ve also decided to pick up a copy of the book pictured below. By the same editorial team. I very much look forward to perusing that, in dew coarse…
Got this on order as well.
A bit of trivia for the discerning bop-cat? The trumpeter on the cover of California Cool is Jack Sheldon. I know Jack best through two sources/routes: as a talking head on Let’s Get Lost, reminiscing about Chet Baker (he’s great, an absolute card!), and as a featured musician on several sublime Tom Waits recordings, from the latter’s purplest of patches (mid ‘70s to early ‘80s).
The range of styles across the board is pretty huge. From ‘scenes’, such as the above, to the more typical ‘in session’ portraits, by Francis Wolff, often massively cropped by Reid Miles, such as Grant Green’s Idle Moments…
… to bold typographic or graphic stuff, such as these doozies…
Sadly these personal faves don’t feature:
Love this!And this.
Maybe they’re included in volume 2? R
U.K.A CD, perhaps?U.S.Japan.
Rather oddly, the second volume appears to have come out in several different editions. But hardly any of these are easily or economically available.
As if the incredible music were not in itself enough, we are truly blessed to have had the combined skills and passion of all at Blue Note. As well as the artists themselves, the vision and passion of guys like Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, is to be rightly commended and celebrated.
And then there were all the engine room guys, like Paul Bacon, in the earlier years, even (very briefly) Andy Warhol, and of course Reid Miles, the classical music lover whose visual genius has helped make classic Blue Note both a byword for sublime music, and a whole aesthetic, based around albums as total works of art.
Fabulous. Essential stuff!
Is this Reid Miles?
FOOTNOTE:
Rather shockingly, it’s next to impossible to source a photo of Reid Miles. I can’t recall where I originally found the above image. But one website – see photo at bottom! – has a mis-attributed photo of Woody Allen!
Apparently this is Reid Miles work, post Blue Note.Say wha’!?
Miles stopped working for Blue Note in 1967. And after that, their album cover design grew ever less uniquely stylish.
I finally got to look around inside St Peter and St Paul, Wisbech, earlier today. Last time I tried, I’d just missed closing time (2pm!). This time I got there at 1.55pm. They were open (just!). And they had a school event on.
So I wasn’t totally free to snap away as I pleased. But the photos here convey some of what was most immediately appealing. One thing this place is strong on is stained glass.
With work in the later afternoon, I arrived in Wisbech nice and early. But I then got waylaid, as CGL (a place I got some help during the worst parts of the last 12-18 months) is nearby. So I dropped in there, on the off chance. Feeling rather shite. They were helpful. Thank goodness for such organisations!
But the upshot was that I nearly missed seeing inside the church… again! As my photos hopefully attest, the chief attractions here are the stained glass windows. There may be more to see?
I’ll have to return, earlier, and when they don’t have a school visiting. And with those thoughts on my mind, I left…
Well, I’m having a glass of red wine. Please let me be capable of self control! I had a pint of shandy a few days ago. And I survived that. The issue is: 1) Can I refrain from drinking too much? 2) Can I also refrain from other foolishness?
Yesterday I had two delivery shifts. The first was a shorter one, delivering groceries on behalf of Morrisons. Simple and mostly straightforward.
The second was delivering solely for Amazon, in Cambridge. I’m not super keen on town deliveries. Country stuff suits me much better. Both occasionally present access issues. But towns, generally, in my experience, much more so.
Not too much info…
And Cambridge more so than most, partic’ with the University (students in halls, porters in their lodges, unable or unwilling to be very helpful, etc.). Flats and other weirdly located places present issues of access vs time. I had a very troublesome instance of this yesterday.
What I’ve learned from these repeated experiences is that:
1) I have to take extra time to try and locate viable access routes (not made easier when customers don’t answer texts or calls!); 2) I must remain calm, even in the face of unreasonable folk (not necessarily anything to do with work, per se*); 3) If I can’t gain safe trouble-free access, within a reasonable time frame, return the package to the depot.
I hate doing the latter, as it can seriously impact on overall time taken/fuel consumed, etc, and thus affect earnings. But it’s preferable to nasty scenes with irate ne’erdowells.
* In yesterday’s instance, it was a busybody totally unrelated to the delivery, getting very hot and bothered about where I was temporarily (with hazard lights flashing; having made unanswered texts and calls to the customer) parked.
I paid £1 for this at a book stall in our local Tesco. And I kind of feel had!
I’m surprised in fact that I’m persisting with reading it, to be honest. Life’s too short, frankly!
The author’s style is very run of the mill, and unremarkable. But much worse than that, his central character – the protagonist for whom we should be rooting – is a bell-end.
A feckless and not to be credited (in any sense of that expression) gambling addict, who moves from down on his luck gambling dildo to ADC to Caulaincourt, on the eve of the 1812 invasion of Russia.
I collect stuff on 1812, so I thought I’d take a punt. And it’s also useful for me right now to have brainless diversions from the fall-out of the last eighteen months of travails. So it’s really just on those two counts that I persist.
Waaay back in 1989, Trump was calling out Donald Trump for the criminal he has always so very proudly been. In Crumb’s comic book world of wish-fulfilment Trump is literally flushed down the toilet.
A prophecy? I do hope so.
I’m not usually one to wish ill on anyone. Well, I didn’t used to be. But several extremely unpleasant experiences in the last few years have changed that.
I’m 100% with Crumb in wishing and hoping fervently that Trump and his ilk be publicly punished, and indeed humiliated, and that their disgustingly venal self-serving ways be fully exposed for what they are.
Crumb’s more recent anti-Trump T-shirt design.
I’ve read that Trump has been found guilty of all 36 charges against him, in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case. Excellent. Let’s hope this is just the first in a tidal wave of successful prosecutions.
And let’s hope he spends the remainder of his life in jail. Sadly I suspect his hyper-wealth will protect him from such an outcome. I hope I’m proven wrong.
Trump is allegedly a great businessman. Well, he’s certainly very rich. But according to hundreds of former ‘business associates’, or more plainly victims of his ‘sharp practices’, he’s just a non-paying bully and criminal.
As Adam Gabbatt tartly observes, in a piece on Trump’s recent Bible sales gambit, for The Guardian ‘Trump owes more than $500m as a result of civil court convictions. He is facing 88 felony charges, in five different jurisdictions, and lawyers cost money (unless you don’t pay them).’
Trump and Stormy, 2006.
Just as Crumb saw Trump clearly for the criminal he is, so too did Joni Mitchell understand where we’ve all been headed, as the 1985 lyrics to ‘Dog Eat Dog’ testify:
It's dog eat dog, I'm just waking up The dove is in the dungeon And the white washed hawks pedal hate and call it love Dog Eat Dog Holy hope in the hands of Snakebite evangelists and racketeers And big wig financiers Dog eat dog On prime time crime the victim begs Money is the road to justice And power walks it on crooked legs Primetime, Crime Holy hope in the hands of Snakebite evangelists and racketeers And big wig financiers Where the wealth's displayed Thieves and sycophants parade And where it's made The slaves will be taken Some are treated well In these games of buy and sell And some like poor beast Are burdened down to breaking Dog eat dog It's dog eat dog, ain't it Flim Flam man Dog eat dog, you can lie, cheat, skim, scam Beat'em any way you can Dog eat Dog You'll do well in this land of Snakebite evangelists and racketeers You could get to be A big wig financier Land of snap decisions Land of short attention spans Nothing is savored Long enough to really understand In every culture in decline The watchful ones among the slaves Know all that is genuine will be Scorned and conned and cast away Dog eat dog People looking, seeing nothing Dog eat dog People listening, hearing nothing Dog eat dog People lusting, loving nothing Dog eat dog People stroking, touching nothing Dog eat dog Knowing nothing Dog eat dog
A sign outside said ‘Welcome, we are open.’ But it was locked shut. Damn! There was even a doorbell. I rang it a few times. No idea if it worked or not. Nobody answered.
Gorgeous shadows and light!
Between The Butcher’s Arms and the cathedral, there are some ruins. Poss an old Abbey, or Abbey Gatehouse? They now enclosed a small municipal park. Lovely!
Teresa, for scale!Lovely panoramic view.
The next gallery is us walking down the steps to the cathedral.
Friday evening we all – well, nearly all – met up at The Butcher’s Arms, in Cardiff. To celebrate Abbie’s 26th birthday. With a meal, a drinks, for all. Followed by a ‘painting party’, for the ladies.
