Category: Uncategorised

The above gallery compresses several room into one smorgasbord. Moving from the previous room, with the exquisite brass and tortoise-shell, to the next, looks like this:

Which, whilst intriguing, doesn’t quite prepare one for the next room:

There’s a vast array of art throughout the house. But the stuff in this room is a concentrated dose that really blew us away. Funnily enough we were starting to tire, and needed a wee sit down. And this room has a perfect little bench. Which was also perfect for taking in some small measure of the richness of what this one small-ish room contains.

And onwards. The treasure trove seems never-ending. Too much to take in with one visit.

The mind boggles at the scale, the splendour. It’s an obscenely ostentatious display of wealth and power. But it’s undeniably intoxicatingly beautiful. Mad!

We rocked up a little later than anticipated, due to a crash on a road just outside March, that diverted us onto a much slower but more scenic route north.

The above mini-gallery is an area I explored whilst Teresa got herself ready to exit our car. The final photo taken as I returned to the car park.

Teresa occasionally mentions wanting to watch some cricket. And, lo and behold, there was a group of guys doing just that, on the lawns in from of the house.

We’d thought we’d walk around the grounds, either before or after visiting the house. But in the end we went straight to the house. Well, sort of. We sat down to watch a bit of the cricket.

There’s so much to see and enjoy here, just in the house, I’ll have to split this into two, maybe three, posts.

Every now and then I succumb to a morbid fascination with true-crime. Occasionally, more specifically, that means those über-transgressive subjects, serial-killers. One of the most intriguing of these is Ed Kemper.

Today I listened to a longer version of some interviews with Ed Kemper, short extracts of which have long been on YouTube. Hearing the fuller versions is very illuminating. Selective editing can, and does (obviously, really) vastly change how things come across.

Ed is massive! 6’ 9”, and very heavy set with it. A giant of a man! As the above images attest. I’m 6’ 1”. Ed’s the best part of a foot taller! And he is beefy with it. This imposing physical presence – even via the abstracting distance of the interweb – also adds to his ‘dark charisma’

I have to say that I find both Ed Kemper and Ted Bundy fascinating to listen to. In a way that’s very much not the case with a lot of killers. This is because they are clearly both intelligent and articulate.

One of the bits of Kemper’s story that’s usually left on the cutting room floor, but in this unexpurgated version really struck me, is Ed relating how his ability to think had lain dormant. And was finally brought out by an high school art teacher.

Unlike Bundy, who had to be caught (and re-caught!), and who doggedly maintained his innocence for many years, Kemper turned himself in, has not tried to escape (unless you count suicide attempts), and has never denied his culpability for his crimes.

Another thing I’ve learned about Big Ed is, rather surprisingly/amazingly, he had a pretty blond girlfriend – to whom he was engaged – during his grisly spree. He has said that she is one of the reasons he ultimately turned himself in.

A great resource for all things Ed is edmundkemperstories.com. I’ve learned a lot about this grim but fascinating chapter of history reading the posts there. And that’s also where a number of the photos I’ve used come from.

FBI profiler John Douglas found that, ultimately, he couldn’t help but like Edmund. Primarily for his intelligence and humour. This is not to belittle the horror of Kemper’s crimes. Rather, it is simply an honest response to the post-killing spree person Kemper managed to be.

To this day, however, Kemper – who requested the death penalty – has either not attended his parole hearings, or has admitted that he is best staying where he is, in prison. He knows he passed way beyond the pale. And admits he’ll never really come in from the cold.

Now, ill with severe diabetes, and having had an aneurysm, he is probably both too infirm to be a real threat to anyone, and simultaneously too institutionalised, physically and mentally, to survive outside of prison.

Interest in Ed and his crimes remains strong. Johnny Burke, someone I know socially/personally (brother of a best buddy’s wife) directed The Co-Ed Killer, in 2021. And a French team has rendered Kemper’s story as a graphic novel.

* Kemper killed his maternal grandparents, Edmund and Maude Kemper, aged just 15. Jailed for these killings, he was released back into society just six years later, on his 21st birthday. Shortly thereafter, between May 1972 and April 1973, he killed six young women – Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa; Aiko Koo; Cindy Schall; Rosalind Thorpe and Allison Liu (these killings earning him the name ‘the co-ed killer’), and finally, his mother, Clarnell Strandberg, and her friend and neighbour Sally Hallett. Armed to the teeth, he then went on the run, anticipating going down in ‘blaze of glory’ gunfight with the law enforcement posse he felt was bound to track him down. When that didn’t happen, he called the police and gave himself up.

I’ve recently bought a selection of David Munrow Early Music Consort recordings, on CD. Some new. Some second-hand. This – Music of The Crusades – is one of the latter.

Whoever I bought this off didn’t pack or rather protect it adequately.

Fortunately the CD itself is undamaged. And plays just fine. Repackaged, it’s looking ok, and sounding fine. I’m mighty relieved.

St Clement’s is an interesting church. One of a few locally that have the tower separate from the remainder of the edifice.

We were lucky; the church was locked, but a couple of folk turned up (for choir practice, apparently), and let us in. Good timing!

The lady told us the font was particularly interesting. And proceeded to open it up for us. She wasn’t lying!

It’s hard to follow a font like that. But there remains plenty more to enjoy. Such as the several different parts of the roof, and some lovely stained-glass.

As you near the altar the stained glass reaches a crescendo of loveliness.

And finally, back out, to wander round the graveyard…

St Clement’s is a lovely church. Well worth a visit. We weren’t able to look inside the tower, sadly. Maybe another time?

I was delivering miles and miles away from where I normally work. I spotted this church, near the end of my route.

Shut.

Hey ho!

Took the above whilst stopped on the road from Whittlesey to Thorney, just before crossing the river Nene. And shortly after this field full o’ cows, was a field full o’ sheep! Aw… lovely.

And then, after my final drop, in Thorney (a lovely village that dates back to the 600s), I saw these geese. I love living out in the country! It nourishes the soul in a way the city not only fails to do so, but actively works against.

I used to studiously ignore these public info’ boards. Not entirely sure why, to be honest!? I’ve snapped this one so I can read it at me leisure (the latter to be pronounced US style, as in seizure!), out of the biting winds that are blowing today.

I stopped just outside Thorney to have my Morrison’s salad counter lunch. Delish! We must – or rather I must – start making such stuff at home. It’ll be cheaper, and very healthy. And it’s way more satisfying and delicious than the ‘pornography for the palate’ that is so much of contemporary convenience foods.

I’m going to sit and chill here for a while. And prob’ try and book some more delivery work. Those two things don’t go together – relaxing and getting work – truth be told!

I wish I had a better camera! The above image totally fails to capture the magic moment a Douglas C-47 in D-Day colours flew overhead.

Another visit to ye church of ye ol’ Thorney Abbey.

This time I didn’t a good deal more time looking around outdoors. The weather was gorgeous. And so, too, it turns out, is the graveyard.

I spent a good deal of time wandering around, snapping away. A primary school party passed through whilst I was making merry taking pics. I wonder what they all made of me (if anything)?

Having spent a really good deal of time, and most satisfyingly so, wandering around outside, on this most glorious of days, in a sublime graveyard, the time finally came to go in.

The real treasure here is the main window, pictured below. Truly glorious. And as I’ve said elsewhere, very like some of the stained glass at Ely Cathedral.

And lo, it finally came time to go…

I love the picture above. I think of it as ‘beatnik with a bassoon’! I’m not sure exactly what instrument David Munrow is actually playing, in the photo. But the bassoon was one of the first things he learned, as a child, so it seems apt.

As this post will attest, I’m undergoing a mildly manic phase of digging deeper into David Munrow, the man and the music. And more…

I’ve posted on this topic before (here, for example). But I intend to make this post into a longer-term place to collect as much stuff on the subject as I can. Stuff like this.

This evening, as I battle the Black Eyed Dog myself, I googled ‘why David Munrow suicide?’. This came up; which, it turned out, was more about his life than his death.

It may seem morbid, but I do want to know more about the where, when, how, and why of his hanging himself, aged just 33, in – I think? – the beautiful Bucks village of Chesham Bois, back in ‘76.

Why? Well, partly because I feel that I partake of a similar manic depressive psyche. In researching this rather macabre topic I learned several things:

That he has a sister (an actress, still alive and working); that the date of his demise was 15th May. And that he had attempted suicide before, by drug overdose. What drugs? Prescription, or other? How/why?

But, whilst I’ll undoubtedly return to this sad theme another time, for now, at the time of commencing this post, I only have these two newly arrived double-CDs of his work:

I’ve been listening to these discs over the last few days. And I adore them. I was worried the top one – Instruments of the Middle Ages – might be too programmatic and educational to make good listening. How wrong I was! But I’ll save ‘reviewing’ any of these recordings for another time.

Meanwhile, my passion for further exploration of Munrow and the great variety of predominantly older – or ‘Early’ – music he helped make more widely known is leading me to collect more of his recorded legacy. I have just ordered these:

That still leaves loads more to explore. I think I read somewhere that in the mere decade of his recording car etc he released about 55 recordings! These include stuff such as the following (some of which are on CD, some vinyl, and some on both formats):

One thing one ought to remember is that Munrow’s recorded output was originally released on record.

I’m more in to collecting CDs, these days. I’d probably have preferred to stick with records. But, many moons ago, those cheeky smaller CDs more or less eclipsed the much bulkier vinyl. Only for us to then witness a more recent renaissance of records.

In terms of the bulk of my music collection, I’m stuck with CDs, format wise.

[pic]

I’m going to try and compile a list of Munrow’s recorded works, and see what formats they’re available in (this website should help me do that).

To give a few examples, here’s a series of mini galleries, contrasting some old vinyl versions with CDs that contain the same, or overlapping, content. The vinyl version is on the left, CD on the right:

Sometimes, as can be seen in the above comparison, a CD reissue will group different recordings together. I could equally well have made this comparison:

In both instances ye olde vinyl is far more attractively packaged. But I’ll have to put up with the visual aesthetic let-down. And console myself with a slight duplication of content; I already have this:

Or, in another and different combination, the first two, below, wind up together on CD, in the third (and visually much duller) incarnation:

It also turns out that some of the music on one of the CDs I’ve just ordered is also available separately on CD, for example in this edition:

The EMI version is vinyl, the Virgin Veritas is CD.

But let’s go back a bit… shown directly below is an album that touches on where all things Munrow started, kind of, for me. I say kind of, ‘cause I encountered The Hobbit music not on this funky old vinyl LP, but embedded in the CD version of the BBC radio adaptation

For now, in this first segment of what I hope will be a gradually growing post, I’ll sign off on this evening’s researches with some more ‘then and now’ comparisons:

For Courtly Love we can contrast two vinyl versions with a more recent CD re-issue.

That’s it for the first instalment of this post. I’ll return to augment it with more (such as stuff about Munrow’s radio and TV work), as and when I can.

THE NEXT DAY…

I have the above pictured version of The Hobbit. It’s an endearing interpretation of Tolkien’s mini-epic and more kid-oriented precursor to The Lord o’ The Rings.

Rather annoyingly, despite the extra CD of music, and echoing the same scenario with The BBC’s (?) adaption of TLOTR, the musical moments I like the most are not included on the CD!

One of my delivery stops today was Belton Hall, a property in Lincolnshire, owned by the NT. Teresa and I must visit. I wonder, have we been before?

St. Bartholomew’s, Welby

I finished in the village of Welby today. And I was right next to St Bartholomew’s. So I had a look around. It was shut. But a phone call got someone out to open up for me.

St. Bart’s has some great gargoyles. And some nice ornamentation.

A rather snazzy rood screen, more interesting carvings inside, and one nice stained glass windows.

A great little church, a bit off my usual map. Literally. Further north than I usually go. Well worth a look.

St Andrew’s, Kelby

Bagpuss spots another spire, off in the distance. Actually I was recommended this church by the keyholder of St. Bart’s.

St Andrew’s was also locked. But in this case I couldn’t get hold of a keyholder. It was also a rare instance – as in singular – of the vicar (or whatever rank she holds) not being very helpful. But I won’t dwell on that.