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alexsarllIs there any particular reason I should be in London on Friday, Saturday or Sunday?
With council tax set to rocket, what (aside from the ace libraries) are Islington spending my money on? Well, they're cracking down on the illegal fag sellers on Holloway Road, which seems fair enough - except that from this page, they seem more concerned with ads aimed at the buyers than at taking down the sellers. The sellers are not exactly subtle - surely frequent, massed plainclothes sweeps would do the job? Oh, and there's the Finsbury Park Area Action Plan (not, incidentally, at the url given on the paper copy they sent out, which omitted the final .asp) - which, reading slightly between the lines, is clearly a manifesto for turning Finny P station into a ghastly, unwieldy mini-me of the mall-stations like Hammersmith. Still, if you've been sent a copy, do be sure to return the form with your comments - I have little faith that they'll take any notice of what we actually want, but if we don't participate in this sham we lose the moral right to complain about it later. Speaking of which, all those of you who endorsed the arrival of the serpent buses on safety grounds? A colleague saw someone trapped in the door and dragged along the road yesterday, an utter impossibility on the Routemaster.
Last night, I read The Life Eaters by David Brin and Scott Hampton, an elaborate blasphemy against the Old Gods in comic form. It's not true, but it's still quite a good read.
Does it unnerve anyone else that in all the posters for Sinatra at the London Palladium, there's no mention that the star of the show is slightly...mortally challenged? I mean, yes, you might think it's obvious, and I might think it's obvious, but I remember a Varsity music *editor* who tried to get an interview with Nick Drake...on which note Darker Than The Deepest Sea: The Search For Nick Drake by Trevor Dann
The dreamy, dark and folk-tinged songs of Nick Drake are part of the critical canon nowadays; he's a fashionable name to drop in interviews, or deploy on film soundtracks. But as is so often the case, this fame was strictly posthumous; the life Dann recounts is a depressing slog of repeated commercial failure and ever-deepening personal problems, climaxing in a drug overdose which may have been either a tragic accident or an unsurprising suicide. Dispiriting as it is, Dann's book also feels somehow slight, not so much through any fault of the writer (who, if not a great stylist, is competent and commendably thorough) as through the nature of the 26-year life it recounts. The singer Robyn Hitchcock (like Drake, a key influence on REM) is quoted as saying "Nick Drake's music brushes the ear" - similarly, Nick Drake brushed the lives of those he knew. At best, one interviewee after another repeats variations on a theme of how you never really got to know Nick, and he always seemed detached from life. At worst, he comes across as the Pete Doherty of his day, 'untogether' even by sixties standards, the blame for most of his problems very much on his own slender shoulders.
As the book recounts, Nick Drake is the sort of artist who breeds obsessive fans; his oblique lyrics can support myriad interpretations, and something in his vocal style makes the listener feel he’s singing just to them, that he understands. Most people would be better sticking with the music than reading this book; it’s more likely to detract from appreciation of his work than enhance it. There’s little new here, and less of that significant - except one late, distasteful and rather random suggestion that Drake may have been abused as a child, offered without plausible support.
My favourite new band name: The Strange Death Of Liberal England.
With council tax set to rocket, what (aside from the ace libraries) are Islington spending my money on? Well, they're cracking down on the illegal fag sellers on Holloway Road, which seems fair enough - except that from this page, they seem more concerned with ads aimed at the buyers than at taking down the sellers. The sellers are not exactly subtle - surely frequent, massed plainclothes sweeps would do the job? Oh, and there's the Finsbury Park Area Action Plan (not, incidentally, at the url given on the paper copy they sent out, which omitted the final .asp) - which, reading slightly between the lines, is clearly a manifesto for turning Finny P station into a ghastly, unwieldy mini-me of the mall-stations like Hammersmith. Still, if you've been sent a copy, do be sure to return the form with your comments - I have little faith that they'll take any notice of what we actually want, but if we don't participate in this sham we lose the moral right to complain about it later. Speaking of which, all those of you who endorsed the arrival of the serpent buses on safety grounds? A colleague saw someone trapped in the door and dragged along the road yesterday, an utter impossibility on the Routemaster.
Last night, I read The Life Eaters by David Brin and Scott Hampton, an elaborate blasphemy against the Old Gods in comic form. It's not true, but it's still quite a good read.
Does it unnerve anyone else that in all the posters for Sinatra at the London Palladium, there's no mention that the star of the show is slightly...mortally challenged? I mean, yes, you might think it's obvious, and I might think it's obvious, but I remember a Varsity music *editor* who tried to get an interview with Nick Drake...on which note Darker Than The Deepest Sea: The Search For Nick Drake by Trevor Dann
The dreamy, dark and folk-tinged songs of Nick Drake are part of the critical canon nowadays; he's a fashionable name to drop in interviews, or deploy on film soundtracks. But as is so often the case, this fame was strictly posthumous; the life Dann recounts is a depressing slog of repeated commercial failure and ever-deepening personal problems, climaxing in a drug overdose which may have been either a tragic accident or an unsurprising suicide. Dispiriting as it is, Dann's book also feels somehow slight, not so much through any fault of the writer (who, if not a great stylist, is competent and commendably thorough) as through the nature of the 26-year life it recounts. The singer Robyn Hitchcock (like Drake, a key influence on REM) is quoted as saying "Nick Drake's music brushes the ear" - similarly, Nick Drake brushed the lives of those he knew. At best, one interviewee after another repeats variations on a theme of how you never really got to know Nick, and he always seemed detached from life. At worst, he comes across as the Pete Doherty of his day, 'untogether' even by sixties standards, the blame for most of his problems very much on his own slender shoulders.
As the book recounts, Nick Drake is the sort of artist who breeds obsessive fans; his oblique lyrics can support myriad interpretations, and something in his vocal style makes the listener feel he’s singing just to them, that he understands. Most people would be better sticking with the music than reading this book; it’s more likely to detract from appreciation of his work than enhance it. There’s little new here, and less of that significant - except one late, distasteful and rather random suggestion that Drake may have been abused as a child, offered without plausible support.
My favourite new band name: The Strange Death Of Liberal England.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 11:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 11:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 11:48 am (UTC)As to the dealers - where's the neighbourhood policing team? Come on - the Met employs over 30,000 coppers, you're telling me they can't spare half a dozen a couple of times a week to do a swoop. Mind you, last time I was in Brixton there was a big sign appealing for information about a shooting. Of a police officer. So maybe they're just sensible in staying away.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 11:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 11:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 12:06 pm (UTC)