A Genealogical Thread.

There’s credible evidence that my male ancestral line came over here from Ireland about five generations ago, and then married into English hill-farming stock before eventually upgrading to publican status in a Victorian industrial town. It probably explains how I manage to have a Gaelic nose attached to a Germanic head. It probably also explains why I’m drawn to alcohol, the land, Irish music, words on paper, and dark hair tied up with black velvet bands.

Strange though it might seem, it was the women who were the tough guys on that side of the family. One of them even received a note in the mail from her husband – postmarked Liverpool – which said ‘By the time you get this letter, I’ll be on my way to America.’ Seems he’d grown tired of being shot at and having his Gaelic nose lacerated by a mightily wielded beer glass, and it further seems likely that I’ve got distant cousins in America. Well, who hasn’t?

Musical Fusion.

In the absence of sufficient inspiration to make a proper post tonight, I thought I’d offer this exquisite little musical curio.

It would seem the most blatant of oxymorons to describe it as the avant garde of traditional Irish music, and yet I do believe that’s what it is. To my mind it’s avant garde in construction, yet traditional in spirit. And to make it all the more interesting, it’s played on a traditional Norwegian instrument (the Hardanger fiddle, or hardingfele) by a musician of consummate skill and sensitivity who appears to be transported into some other dimension at times during the playing of it.

Fools to the Right of Us...

There’s a civil war raging on the right wing of British politics at the moment, between the traditional nasty-and-dim Tories and the xenophobic upstarts in UKIP. In a way it’s fun to watch, especially since they’re both jumping on the death bandwagon and invoking the Spirit of Thatcher in a comical attempt to win friends and influence people.

I wonder how many of them stop to consider that the politicians who are best remembered are those who fought for humanitarian principles and social justice – the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, workers’ rights and so on – not those who sought to demolish a relatively egalitarian system and replace it with a fly-by-night, boom and bust, socially divisive economy with no solid base, and which merely serves to create a few more millionaires at one end and a disadvantaged, disillusioned and potentially dangerous underclass at the other.

I think I need either to (1) get drunk, or (2) get Lady Gaga to come and sing me to sleep. (As long as she doesn’t reveal her thighs… I think they’d give me nightmares.)

I don’t think I should have said that. Better persevere with the scotch.

Lady Gaga's Little Lesson.

You see what blogging can do for you? I spent the last half hour or so reading up on Lady Gaga, and all because of seeing a video at Madeline’s blog here.

(Me? Lady Gaga? Yeah, I know. Versatile, aren’t I?)

So anyway, in the end I decided she was very talented in lots of ways, but I couldn’t help feeling an undercurrent along the lines of ‘I think she takes herself a bit too seriously.’ My opinion is of no consequence, of course, but it did have me wondering whether I take myself too seriously. I don’t know; how can I? The problem is this:

When we form opinions of people, we do so mainly by employing two areas of scrutiny: the extent to which they accord with our own sensibilities, and the ways in which they conform to or differ from the received norm. In both cases, it’s based on the external view. So how can you do that with yourself, since you don’t have an external view uncoloured by subjective perception? It’s like being locked in a house. You can go to the windows on all sides and look at all the other houses in the neighbourhood, but the one house you can’t see is your own.

I think I know myself very well, having always kept a part of my consciousness standing aside and looking back. But it could never be totally disconnected from the subjective view, so it can never be complete.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

Missing the Opportunity.

We’re getting beautiful spring sunshine and respectable temperatures at the moment. What a shame my weak and painful knee isn’t up to taking advantage of it. Even pulling a vacuum cleaner around sets it off, so a hike around the Shire is out of the question. I’m wondering whether the right kind of poultice would put it right, but I don’t know any herbalists.

Vanilla Cheesecake and Festering Flesh.

The supermarket I use had packs of ‘New York Vanilla Cheesecake’ on special offer this week, so I bought one. It made six perfectly adequate portions (two, I suppose, if you’re American, but I’m not) and is proving highly enjoyable. Whether there is anything quintessentially New Yorkist about vanilla cheesecake I wouldn’t know, of course. Maybe one of my special people from over that way will tell me.

It did, however, bring to mind something I was saying to somebody recently – that Americans have a far more varied cuisine than we poor Brits do (although it’s getting better; we do have curry, pasta, quiche, pizza and bean sprouts these days.) This is obviously due to the fact that America is still a relatively young culture with an immigrant base, and so the fruits of the earth have been handed to them on a lot of different plates.

But then I discovered today that it goes back a little further than that. It’s now finally been proved that early settlers in Virginia were moved to dig up human bodies and eat them during the killer winter of 1609-10. So there you have it: the American taste for a varied menu goes back at least four hundred years. The report didn’t say what they had for dessert.

Some Seeds Which Didn't Germinate.

I’ve been trying to think of a late night post to make. I like making late night posts; they vindicate my lack of sleepiness in the early hours, and are often incomprehensible. Unfortunately, all the seeds fell on stony ground.

I thought of making a post about plans the present government have for re-invigorating Thatcherism, but it was turning into an essay on how the disadvantaged underclass which she created might well become dangerous, and I’m not in the best of moods as it is.

I thought of making a post about Other Interesting Things that Happened in Ashbourne Today, but all I could think of was the fact that the nice lady in Sainsbury’s refunded my £2 parking fee from when I popped in there on Monday – and that isn’t very interesting, is it?

I thought of making a post about why I played rugby for twenty years, but the question of motivation reared its head and I decided not to risk it.

I thought of making a post about the irritating alternative fictions which people create in LOTR compilations on YouTube, but I can’t be sure they’re fictions. They might be in the extended version, and then I’d be showing my ignorance.

So I’m going to drink my pint of Kentish ale and listen to some music instead. I’m not finding the Kentish ale quite as palatable as the Westmoreland ale I had a couple of weeks ago. Maybe that’s because Westmoreland doesn’t exist any more, but the place where it used to be is one of my favourites. I’m wholly unfamiliar with Kent. I got taken to Bromley quite a lot when I was a kid, but that’s more London than Kent. Having tried the beer, I don’t think I’ll bother now.

Oh, I know what I can mention. It’s the Local Government elections tomorrow, so I’ll be off to the village hall to cast my protest vote. I thought of voting UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party.) Not because I have the any time for the silly buggers, you understand, but because they and the Tories aren’t best mates at the moment. But I couldn’t bring myself to stoop that low, so I’ll be voting Green instead. If there isn’t a Green candidate, I’ll be writing ‘None of the above’ on the ballot paper. That’ll teach ’em, won’t it?

The Last Word on LOTR.

(It probably won’t be the last word, but it sounds good.)

I’ve decided I was wrong to criticise Lord of the Rings the way I did. It isn’t that I think I was wrong in the particulars of what I said, more that I was wrong to identify them as fit grounds for criticism.

A film like LOTR isn’t supposed to be about realism, fine detail and in-depth character analysis. It’s an epic fantasy, and does superbly well what the best of epic fantasies should do: it extols the highest ideals and capabilities to which the human spirit, on this level at least, can aspire. It gives us courage, fortitude, justice, high-mindedness, and love in all its varieties. It gives us scenes of mass conflict in which the human heart is moved to o’erleap its normal limitations in the right cause.

And so the charge of the Rohirrim at the Battle of the Pellinor Fields might not be entirely realistic, but my God it rouses the blood of the believer. I’d say it’s the best I’ve seen in any film. The bearing and eyes of the King alone put it into a class apart; it even knocks my erstwhile favourite El Cid into a cocked hat.

Maybe that’s why the film won’t leave me alone. It’s taken hold of me as it appears to have taken hold of so many millions of other ardent fans. In my case, it seems the spirit of the piece is demanding justice and an apology. Well, it has mine.

Sorry Mel (and anybody else I might have offended.) You were right to call me an imp. I stand corrected.

A Little About Litter.

I watched a local authority litter picker in Ashbourne today. He was using the regulation bit of kit – a long pole with a pair of jaws at the bottom end operated by a lever in the handle. I watched as he tried to pick up a stubborn piece of paper, which was small and flat and had no crumple or curled edge for the jaws to grab hold of. He gave up in the end and left it there. He moved onto a second piece which was similar, and repeated the failed operation. I expect he’s been told that he mustn’t bend and pick up litter with his gloved hand. The paper might be infected with something deadly, or he might injure his back and sue the council. It seems we’re moving into health and safety overkill.

*  *  *

So then I went and sat for a few minutes at the bottom part of the old market place. It’s probably the prettiest corner of Ashbourne. It’s a sloping, triangular shaped, cobbled area surrounded by Victorian and Georgian architecture, somewhat faded but still characterful. There’s even a Tudor building in one corner, as well as a tree in the middle and a row of benches along the top side for people to take their ease. I sat on one and noticed that, for several yards in front of the benches, the cobbles were covered with a mass of cigarette butts. Hundreds of them. There was a litter bin only a few feet away, which meant that hundreds of people hadn’t bothered to use it. And nobody has bothered to clean them up. Maybe litter-picking tools aren’t fit for the purpose, and maybe nobody dares bend their back any more.

Saying May a Lot.

It’s May Day here in Britain. ‘May Day’ has a certain ring to it, I suppose because May is a rather special month. May is when the energies of nature come of age and strut their stuff with untrammelled confidence. May is the month of the May blossom, when the world – as Tennyson rather nicely put it – is white with May. And ‘may’ is a word of affirmation; ‘yes yes you may’ is a very special phrase to me.

I somehow can’t imagine living in the southern hemisphere where the equivalent is November. ‘November Day’ sounds not quite right. November is a gloomy month; it’s a month for Eeyores to be born in. It’s the month when the final flowers of the field fade. I was born in November, so I should know.

Blow trumpet!

The world is white with November.

The metre is all wrong.