Seb Palmer

On a recent visit to Topping bookshop in Ely, I had a very brief browse of a splendid large hardback on 1st Empire  glory, which was, I think, the Yale University Press publication Napoleon.

This sumptuous book is partner to a touring exhibition, currently showing in the U.S. and heading for the Museum at the Chateau of Fontainebleau, later in 2019. Sadly this affaire is not destined to come to the shores of perfidious Albion.

I’m seriously tempted to get this book. And I’d love to visit France to see the show, later in the year. The video above is a very short thing by Yale, giving a brief glimpse at the book. The video below is Napoleonic enthusiast Nicholas Hoare enthusing about it and thumbing through it, at slightly greater length.

My mum recently brought the excellent Upstart Crow TV series to my attention. Thanks mum!

Given my recent diatribes on how there’s practically nothing on current TV remotely worth watching, save the occasional re-run of something from the archives, it’s refreshing indeed to find some recently produced TV that’s not only bearable, but actually compelling, enjoyable viewing.

Ben Elton has done a superb job, helped in no small part by an excellent ensemble cast. And Elton and co. get to have their cake and eat it to, simultaneously mocking and celebrating ‘The Bard on Avon’, as Count Arthur once memorably called old Billy The Shake.

Great sport is had with the English language, using both that of the Elizabethan era – sirrah, etc. – and a delirious mash-up of contemporary and made-up stuff, resulting in such gems as ‘puffling pants’, so-and-so ‘doth hate my gutlings’, ‘cod-dangle’ and ‘tufted lady-grotto’.

And whilst the whole thing is delightfully clever, nay, witty even, it’s also piss-pot full to brimming over with knob gags and potty humour, in the best of British traditions, partaking of a noble lineage running all the way from Chaucer and Shakespeare’s lewd comic characters through to Carry On, Benny Hill, and now this.

David Mitchell is pitch perfect as William Shakespeare, both certain of his own genius and yet riddled with insecurities. And the action revolves, for the most part, around his two main haunts, the Shakespeare family home in Avon, and his ‘London lodgings’.

The cast are uniformly terrific. His country bumpkin family, with coarse father, fallen snob mother, homely milkmaid wife and petulant daughter, are a delightful lot. And in London we have his servant, Ned Bottom, Kate, his landlord’s daughter – aspiring actress and frustrated feminist – Kit Marlowe, Anthony Green, and Burbage and his ‘poor players’, etc.

Mark Heap’s Green, constantly scheming against the ‘Upstart Crow’, is a rare and wonderful thing, being that almost oxymoronic impossibility, a nuanced pantomime villain. His dastardly delivery of delightfully enunciated pre-cis-ee-on, and his m.o. of exiting rooms backwards, a-bowing and scraping with overdone mock politesse, all add up to a man one loveth to hate.

The trio of Burbage (Steve Speirs), Condell (Dominic Coleman) and Kempe (Spencer Jones) are also terrific: Burbage the big, bluff, bear-like luvvy, all strutty and shouty, Condell the Grand-Dame and chief whoopsy, and Kempe an obvious parody of Ricky Gervais.

Not only are all the chief players exceeding good, so to are the many cameos, from the less familiar young ‘uns (for example, in episode one Kieran Hodgson as the young ‘love lorn loon’, about to go up to Cambridge, is terrific), through Ben Miller’s Wolf Hall (an obvious reference to Mark Rylance), to Blackadder’s ‘Bob’ (Gabrielle Glaister), right up to such mega-luvvies as Ken Branagh and Emma Thompson. [1]

Teresa, my wife, stolidly refuses to be charmed by this utterly brilliant series, remaining a staunch Bl’adderite. I do love Blackadder, no mistake, but I might actually prefer Upstart Crow. It’s more consistently funny [2], more tightly jam-packed with laughs, and there’s a tighter focus. But I guess time will tell.

I definitely want this on DVD. It comes out in a few days, on Jan 14th.

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NOTES:

[1] I have to confess I’ve never really warmed to Branagh or Thompson, but I do enjoy their contributions here.

[2] By this I mean it arrived on our screens fully formed, whereas Blackadder took a while to evolve, changing dramatically from series one to two, and maturing thereafter.

 

Some years ago mine uncle didst take Teresa and I out to dinner and a concert, in Olde London Towne. I confess I forget what the restaurant or cuisine were, but I vividly recall the venue and music: the concert was at The Idler Academy café and bookshop (sadly no more!), in Notting Hill, and the group was the Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments.

Their programme of musick that night was called The Ministry of Angels, and they had a CD of the same name, which was funded ‘by subscription’, i.e. ye olde fashioned form of crowd-funding. Terry very kindly bought us the CD.

This year he gifted us the group’s most recent recording, The Longest Night. The live concert, all those years ago, was enchanting. One thing I particularly liked was that they celebrated fallen angels as well as the goody-goody ones.

Both albums are excellent. But of the two I definitely prefer the most recent, which, despite an earthier more pagan programme is, musically, quite completely and utterly sublime. The music ranges from ethereal, starting with what sound like harmonics on a violin or similar stringed instrument, to earthily folksy.

Where the first album had an angelic theme, this one has a winter solstice Scandewegian core, several of the songs being sung in (sorry, should know, but don’t!) either Norwegian or Swedish, and the Hardanger fiddle and Nyckelharpa being strange and ancient instruments of those two respective countries.

Whenever I hear a harp playing music of this style/vintage (and that isn’t often enough, alas), I go looking for more similar stuff. I’m always surprised and disappointed how little there appears to be. On Amazon, for example, I could only find three or four such albums, and several of those were out of print vinyl or cassette releases!

Heavens above, I’m 47!

I had a lovely birthday: pancakes and bubbly in bed, for breakfast, pressies galore, lunch and dinner out. Very indulgent and enjoyable.

Got quite a few books, as is my usual way. Most extravagant bookageness on this occasion goes to a fairly old edition of The Photographic History of The Civil War, that being the ACW. Originally in 10 volumes, my version is condensed into five, and is nicely presented, in a case ‘n’ all.

My inspiration for these books was actually a Columbo episode, in which an ACW-crazy general with a diorama of Pickett’s charge has the same edition on his bookshelves. After the Napoleonic era and WWII, the ACW is my next ‘favourite war’.

Whether it’ll ever come to anything I don’t know, but I harbour dreams of building my own armies of Rebs and Unionists, perhaps even making the figures myself. Books such as this collection – fabulous in and of itself – are also great reference material, obviously.

The money dad gave me went on two more military history titles: For God And Kaiser, by Richard Bassett, about the Austrian armies of the Hapsburg empire, and Inside The Third Reich, by Albert Speer. Whilst I’ve only thumbed through the ACW volumes, looking at the pics, I’ve actually started reading Speer’s account, which I’m finding very fascinating.

My mum gave me some money, which I told her I was going to spend on some ‘toy soldiers’, not having bought any for quite some time. I think I’ll buy some Austrians in 6mm, probably mostly Adler, but maybe some Baccus as well? And, again… maybe I’ll even sculpt and cast some figures of my own?

Hannah had already bought Teresa and I the complete Good Life on DVD, but she also got me Marcos Valle’s eponymous 1970 album. I already had a Japanese reissue of this, but I’ve wanted to get the American Light In The Attic label reissues, as well, and that’s what this one is. I listened to it yesterday, and it is SUPERB!

Other presents included a router, a sander, and sundry other bits and bobs. And I’m thankful and grateful for all of them. So thanks to all concerned, especially to Teresa, for helping me have a lovely day. Oh yes, we also stopped in a local pet shop and chatted with some parrots…

 

Stayed up to see the New Year in. Not entirely sure why? The whole NYE thing is, I often find, anything from vaguely disappointing to full-on depressing. Perhaps I’m overstating? In many ways it’s all a bit… bleeaargh, if you know what I mean?

What I find most oppressive about the ‘festive season’, I guess, is the sense that we’re all seemingly supposed to partake of the same ‘automaton droid’ smiley good times vibe, regardless of how we might actually feel.

I may actually feel fine, and perfectly happy. But that doesn’t mean I want to wear silly jumpers, eat too much, and pretend I get on with everybody like we’re all the best of friends. And yet that’s exactly what I do, more or less. And it isn’t exactly too onerous either, I guess.

And so it is that having said all this, we did partake of Yuletide business in a fairly normal way: xmas tree, gifts, roast duck with all the trimmings, visiting with family and friends, etc. My younger brother and sister – Sam and Abbie – came over on their own, which was nice.

As is usual these days, we’ve been watching a lot of TV, although actually it’s more DVDs than TV. Hannah got us The Good Life, Complete Series box-set. That’s been fun to start working our way through.

I find myself feeling a bit like a grizzly bear, wanting nowt more than to hibernate. And I find I’m not doing almost any of the things I thought I might do over the Yuletide break. Instead of catching up on whatever it might be, I simply want to rest and recharge the batteries.

It’s late on Boxing Day, and I’m watching Kentucky Fried Movie. Earlier in the evening I tried out these nasal-hair removal doodads I got from Amazon Vine. I took some pics… have I no shame?

KFM is total dumb-ass silliness, not really worthy of one’s full attention, but kind of enjoyable as background fun. Amongst my favourite bits are… the tits…

Whilst KFM tickles gently, nose hair removal hurts like buggery. Well, maybe not quite.

 

I’ve just finished reading Tiger Force (for a much fuller review of the book see my mini-military blogpost on it, here), about out of control US paratroopers butchering Vietnamese civilians, a fascinating if disturbing subject. Reading this quite pulpy/thriller style modern combat history makes me want to watch the Ken Burns, Lyn Novick Vietnam series again.

Ken Burns and co. spent five years making the superb Civil War documentary series for PBS. Vietnam took twice that time. And when one watches this, one can see why. Both these wars, very different in so many ways, play a large part in making America what she is today

Although the Civil War occurred over 150 years ago, the wounds still fester. How much more so then, for a conflict only 50 years past? With ‘Nam there are still so many left alive that took part, or whose lives were scarred by the events. One such being Vietnamese girl – Phan Thị Kim Phúc – famously photographed, naked, terrified, obviously screaming or crying, fleeing with other civilians from an South Vietnamese [1] napalm bombing. Currently living in Canada, she’s still having skin-graft surgery, all these years later.

I’d dearly love to have this set on DVD, having watched a full-length version online, and the heavily edited version on the BBC iPlayer. But I’m going to wait for it to come down in price (at the time of posting this it’s currently on Amazon UK at over £50!). Even the truncated BBC version was superb. I’ve no idea why the BBC chose to show only ten hours of the full 18 that comprise the original series. Perhaps it was a condition of the production’s syndication or franchising rights? Fortunately there is a widely available full-length version out on DVD.

There was a actually a very similar series made in the early ’80s, called Vietnam, A Television History (or something similar), which was also, like this, a PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) production. It’s interesting to note that, as you’ll learn here, on the Burns series, PBS (for TV, and an equivalent radio organisation whose acronym escapes me) were fruits of Lyndon Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ policies. Yet it was Johnson who, taking over from the assassinated JFK, really escalated America’s commitment to the war, thereby jeopardising his progressive social vision.

In many ways that older TV series is every bit as good, perhaps in places even better, than this newer version. But both make very strong and deliberate attempts to get all sides of the story, from the troops, the civilians, the politicians, generals, journalists, peace movement protesters and so on. This Burns version stays in a more chronological mode, whereas the older series was slightly more thematic, and from that point of view Burns’ new series flows rather better.

The American right doesn’t like Burns – he’s an avowedly and open liberal, and whilst of draft age at the time, he managed to avoid being sent to the Vietnam war – but he’s at pains to point out that he sourced commercial backing for this series from across the board, and that the views his talking heads present are not his own, but are there for the audience to judge.

I think he probably has aimed for balance, but I can also see why the American right feels he has skewed the telling of the story towards a certain left-leaning view of it. In part it might even come down to aesthetics: all the Burns docs I’ve seen (inc. this one, and his WWII no ACW series) have a very particular feel, with moody scenic shots, melancholy music, and a definite non-glorification of war theme.

Still, this and the 1980s series are both very worthy efforts at looking at the whole sorry story that was Vietnam. Not entirely neutral, nor entirely flawless. But pretty amazing, and well worth watching. Essential viewing, I’d argue.

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NOTES:

[1]  I originally wrote American here, but discovered via Wikipedia that it was the South Vietnamese Air Force who dropped this particular batch of napalm. But as the napalm itself, not to mention the plane, and probably also the training and the operational planning, would derive from America… well, you know what I’m getting at.

At the end of my last post I was mentioning how I hadn’t really kept up with Valle’s more recent music. And then yesterday I asked Teresa to select a few Valle CDs to have in the car for a while. She picked Samba ’68, his US Major label debut, Vento Sul, his most out there album (a 1972 collaboration with Som Imaginario and others, which flopped at the time, but has now, and quite rightly, garnered a cult status), and  Escape, a 2001 release on the Far Out label.

All three of these albums are superb, and share a lot musically, whilst also covering a vast and diverse territory. One thing that really struck me was how good Escape is. I’m rather prejudiced against modern ‘world’ music versions of what I regard as classic ’70s stuff. And I don’t much like when artists of that vintage allow themselves to be seduced by the trappings of trendy modern production (e.g. programmed rhythm tracks, or DJ-scratching, etc.).

Fortunately Valle’s musical spirit overcomes any such prejudices, and what we have here is totally organic anyway. The video atop this post is from Feb, 2016, and finds Marcos fronting a tight little band, just a bass, drums and keys trio, essentially, with the addition of a two-piece horn section and a lady singer. They play a superb mixed selection of old and new stuff, and it all sounds totally fresh and groovy. What a talent Marcos is! And what a great band.

Here’s the set list:

0:00 Samba De Verao
4:35 Garra
7:22 A Paraiba Nao Chicago
11:44 Arranca Toco
15:05 Mentira
18:41 Os Grillos
23:57 Estrelar
28:54 Parabens
35:30 Batucada
38:36 Freio Aerodinamico
44:19 Esperando O messias
48:11 Bar Ingles
53:29 Estatica

Blah…

The Life Divine

Can in the Living Room…

Ghost dog..?

John Coltrane … big knife… serial killer playing cards

Blah…

What had started out as rare epiphanies was destined to gradually become routine and dull, and I was to grow unquestionably addicted to a ‘reefer madness’ way of life, seemingly destined for oblivion.

As I bumbled along life’s highway, I continued to develop my taste for things jazz, beat, and louche. Tom Waits, Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Captain Beefheart, Can, Chet Baker, Miles and ‘Trane, Kerouac, all these cats themselves romanticised a life that was fuelled by sex, drugs, and beautiful music. One problem in my life was that the incessant smoking was eclipsing everything else. There was quite a bit of music, if not always beautiful. But there was far too little sex!

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One of the clichés of any drug use, but marijuana is particularly known for this, is that it’s a ‘gateway’ drug: you start smoking dope, and you wind up trying out all sorts of other and ultimately harder drugs. I don’t be think there’s a hard and fast causal connection here. Rather, what happens is one discovers that this terrible evil one has been warned off turns out to be pretty groovy, so you inevitably think, is this also true for x, y and z?