Author: Seb Palmer

A fascination with manual labour is something I’ve always had. Perhaps rooted in seeing my dad making stuff, bewitched by his workbench and tools, in the garage of our childhood home.

I don’t recall now when I first encountered Fred, but he immediately had a certain appeal. His gruff no nonsense manner, and pride in his Bolton roots/accent, also strike a chord, of some sort. My maternal Granny was evacuated to Blackpool from London during The Blitz, so there’s a Northern connection in the family.

As appealing as he is, through his passion for ye olde ways and Victorian engineering, and such like, his flaws are also very much on display. His curmudgeonly old-fashioned old codger streak is ten miles wide. And he’s clearly very selfish and self-centred. But he’s openly and bluntly so; what you see is what you get.

One could pick apart his reverence for the past. But at the same time, he is on to something. and he’s not under any illusions as regards how hard life was in the ‘good old days’. Or is he? Well, that’s something I might mull over later in this piece (and/or any other Fred-centric future posts).

In the last year or two I’ve been revisiting my fascination with Dibnah. There are numerous TV series floating around, from later in his life. But I’m probably most beguiled by the old (BBC?) series, with the rather enchanting James Galway flute music, which is easily available on YouTube.

Fred was 40 or so when his career as a Bolton steeplejack brought him into an unlikely TV celebrity. As I’m typing this I’m watching the hard-drinking chain smoking Fred, working in the snow, with Donald, his tee-total sidekick, discussing other lesser steeplejacks and his distaste for the be-suited insurance men, as they prep a chimney for destruction.

His chequered love life, or marital life, and his views on things like marriage and the ladies, etc, are very old school and traditional. And probably the most uncomfortable and awkward watching is seeing how Fred and his various wives ultimately fail to connect.

So, Fred is a very flawed man. To call him a ‘hero’ seems a bit odd. Not long before he died, Fred was made an MBE, and he was and still is beloved by many. Over time his career would shift from the manual work of jobbing steeplejack to presenting the numerous TV series he made later in his life, which eloquently attest to his passion for historical engineering.

Learning that he had a stint at art school, and seeing the chimney be built for his mother’s home – you might think she’d be proud, but she seems to disapprove and view it as an annoyance! – all these things about his formative years are fascinating. His mother’s a cold and pretty miserable fish! Perhaps his troubles with women have some roots in this relationship?

In the end Fred’s hardworking boozing and all those fags caught up with him. It’s sad that such an industrious intelligent hardworking man should die before his time. No doubt he still had a lot more to do and to give.

And what if any legacy has he left? Certainly he was very popular. And perhaps he’s helped bring new blood into the fold, as far as wanting to keep some of the ‘old ways’ going? His own property and his collection of gear has had a chequered life since it’s creator’s death. I’m not sure if any of it still stands?

Isn’t it funny how sometimes things occur with a fortuitous synchronicity? Only yesterday I posted about Josep Palau i Fabre’s series of books on Picasso, and I happened to refer, in that post, to the fact that both authors – engaged in exhaustive documentation of Picasso’s life/works – i Fabre and John Richardson, seemed to have stalled around parts three or four.

And, right after I post this, I learn that Richardson’s fourth volume of his very detailed Life of Picasso – of which series I have the first three volumes (and have so far read the first two) – is due out very soon. April 7th, this year, to be precise.

Well, well, well… three holes in the ground, as my ol’ dad used to say!

It’s coming up to 7am, the night after my pal Dan’s 50th birthday party. After a few hours sleep, I’m awake again, and not likely to get back to sleep for a while. So I decided to add a few more of my book reviews to Good Reads.

Two of the additions were titles by Catalan writer, poet and Picasso expert Josep Palau i Fabre (read more on him here). The first was my first plush art book purchase (pictured above), bought whilst still in my teens. The second (below) I bought many years later.

And tonight, whilst doing the reviews and unable to sleep, I ordered, via Amazon, i Fabre’s third in the series, Picasso: From the Ballets to Drama, 1917-1926.

Was i Fabre planning to cover Picasso’s whole life, ultimately? I’ve found another title, possibly the next in such a series. But, rather oddly, there’s no mention of any such book on the Wikipedia page about his life and works I’ve linked to above.

Whatever his plans and ambitions may have been in this respect (and the writings of John Richardson, also on Picasso, spring to mind in this connection), i Fabre died in 2008, aged 90, not having got further – in terms of the chronological catalogue raisonne type works – than either this, or the possible sequel, Picasso: From Minotour To Guernica 1927-1939.

So far I have just the first two volumes, both big fat chunky hardbacks, The Early Years, 1881-1907, and Cubism, 1907-1917, purchased many years apart. Having ordered number three in the series, Ballets & Drama, 1917-1926 – at a very reasonable £27.75 (inc. postage!) – I’m very excited at the prospect of both enlarging my collection and, best of all, perusing all the artworks.

I’d get the next one, as well, if I could find it at an affordable price. The cheapest copy on Amazon UK when I made my most recent order was priced at £220! I think I’ll try shopping around a bit. Mind you, the three copies listed on Abebooks.com right now range from £360 to £1,400! Making the initially exorbitant £220 seem quite reasonable!

If I’m honest the textual content, whilst of interest, is a distant second to the images. Like a lot of art history or related literature, the texts of the two I have are hardly the main selling point, for me; rather hagiographic, and a bit lumpen – is this partly the translation? (I’m not in a rush to read his poetry!) – I do dip into it.

But the pictorial content, Picasso’s work, is what it’s all about for me.

Shit! Vlad’ is clearly mad!

He’s so far gone he can go on TV, knowing the entire world will see and hear him, and call the democratically elected leader of Ukraine, who is – according to German news channel DW (where I heard it first) and Wikipedia – Jewish, a Nazi, or neo-Nazi. Fucking mad!

Zelensky’s grandfather, Zemyon, fought the Nazi’s in Russia’s contribution to WWII, and lost his father and three brothers in the Holocaust. Putin, you’re a barking mad lunatic!

It seems pretty clear to me that he’s totally mad. A rabid dog, that ought to be put down. Why should the grunts and civilians die because Putin is trying to live out a Czarist/Soviet fantasy?

The current threat to world peace is, to my mind, greater than that posed by Osama Bin Laden. we could countenance offing him. Why not Putin? It’s obvious, of course. Putin has the military and espionage might of one of the world’s – no, sorry, the world’s mightiest nuclear super-power – at his back.

I’ve watched this very well produced series several times now, and thoroughly enjoyed every viewing.

The production and acting are superb, and the story itself is very compelling. Naturally one wonders about the relationship of the media, which is fundamentally entertainment, as much as anything else, to the truth of the events it depicts.

The central focus, although it’s a very well done multi-strand series, is on John O’Neill (played by Jeff Daniels), and his quest to get the FBI to share its intel on Al Quaeda with the CIA. His place in this story is made all the more poignant and telling because, ultimately, well… I won’t say here, as I don’t want to spoil this for viewers coming to it fresh. But, as the title conveys…

Synopsis wise, I’ll recycle the Erik Pedersen Deadline Hollywood quote that the Wiki entry on the series uses:

‘It follows members of the I-49 Squad in New York and Alec Station in Washington D.C, the counter-terrorism divisions of the FBI and CIA, respectively, as they travel the world fighting for ownership of information while seemingly working toward the same goal – trying to prevent an imminent attack on U.S. soil.’

Many superb actors give excellent performances on their many respective roles. Worthy of note is Tahir Rahim, who plays Ali Soufan, a Lebanese born American and Muslim, who works for O’Neil (also familiar to BBC viewers from The Serpent).

There is also a whole ensemble of other ‘middle eastern’ characters, from the charismatic Yemeni General played by Ali Suliman to the many Al Quaeda ‘operatives’. And these latter range from a war scarred kid to Mohammad Atta, hijacker pilot of American Airlines 11, that crashed in the North Tower, played terrifically by Tunisian actor (and former footballer!) Dhafer L’Abidine.

The series is based on a 2006 book of the same name by Lawrence Wright. The ten episode series wound up being given the biggest budget and the most editorial freedom by Hulu, who weren’t initially the film-maker’s first choice.

The relation between on screen entertainment and truth is, like reality, messily complex. But one feels that the people making this have striven for the best and closest they can come. And they do a good job.

One very notable aspect is how they treat the Al Qaeda characters. They are not cardboard cut-out evil villains, but humans, whose motivations we can start to better understand when they’re presented as real people.

And conversely – and this might or might not have been so intentional – the open minded viewer sees clearly the flawed and parochial positions adopted by many of the US players.

Personally I really love this series, and think it’s surprisingly good, for an age and culture in which dumbed down nonsense is all too often the preferred route taken by TV ‘entertainment’. This seeks to understand and inform, and does a pretty damn good job.

———————-

NYTimes review: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/arts/television/looming-tower-review-hulu.html

I suspect this might not be a welcome interjection. But I’m going to make it anyway. On the basis of free speech, alternate views, healthy debate, etc.

I’m no fan (nor hater) of Kenny G. I barely know of him or his music, except that it’s ‘smooth jazz’, or ‘jazz-lite’, and seems to have once been quite popular; but not amongst jazzers, who mostly seem to see ‘The G-meister’ as a butt for their vitriol and scorn.

One of the only things I know about him, outside of the above, is that for a while Bruce Carter was his drummer. Bruce was the drummer for the group Pleasure, who were a superb Portland band, taken under the wing of The Crusaders’ Wayne Henderson (at the recommendation of Grover Washington). That alone makes me prepared – in theory; I’ve never actually put it to the test – to give the G-man a chance.

Outside of pop music, which is shoved down our throats daily by the suits, I choose to just ignore what I don’t like, rather than attack it.

And, quite frankly, why shouldn’t anyone duet with anyone else? If they want to. I’m into freedom for all, not the proscriptive denial of others freedoms. Should Bill Laswell be barred from making his ‘mix translations’? I think his Santana Divine Light project is fab. And his Miles stuff is pretty good as well.

Alice Coltrane was attacked for having the temerity to add strings to her husbands’ recordings, John Coltrane bring something of a sacred cow. The album she created, Infinity by doing so, is, in my view, sublime. But the tsunami of reactionary hatred it generated meant we got no more in that line. A real shame.

I think I dislike snobbery and proscription more than I dislike most music I’m not keen on. Sadly jazz seems peculiarly afflicted with virulent strains of snobbery. Once upon a time such jazzers might hold that anything claiming to be jazz not from N’Orleans, and/or pre-1929, was the work of insidious imposters. These guardians of ‘true jazz’ became known as ‘moldy [sic; a US term!] figs’.

Nigel, you dislike Kenny G. Fine. Don’t listen to him. But who are the real threats to respect for the jazz traditions? I think Kenny G’s hubris is relatively inconsequential. The hideous beast that is modern corporate pop, on the other hand? There’s an enemy of all music (and the human spirit) worth getting worked up about.*

PS – I can imagine the perfect pithy riposte to my lengthy disquisition… ‘f*ck *ff, Seb’!

*I’m more offended when I hear contemporary pop rap or r&b artists totally ripping off vintage soul and jazz, using it as karaoke in effect, with nary a nod to the authors of the music they desecrate with their vacuous egomaniacal ranting.

Wow! Happened on this doc’ on BBC2 totally accidentally. This was quite a revelation to me, in parts. I didn’t realise, for example, that Fleetwood Mac had lived out the hippie dream, taking up residence in a communal country house, getting stoned and making music.

So, while it’s available – I don’t know how long this link will work for – here it is: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008k8q.

And what a band Fleetwood Mac have been: the Peter Green blues explosion era, the Bob Welch period, and then the ‘classic’ quintet with the arrival of Buckingham/Nicks.

A while back I got a whole bunch of their albums, concentrating on the earlier years up to and including Rumours. Seeing this makes me realise I need to go back and listen to them a lot more.

As with so many music history tales, I found the most interesting stuff was the early to mid years. The whole thing got less exciting and interesting as the years piled up. This is a bit sad for me, as I’m now 50!

As The Floyd had it: I missed the starting gun, I didn’t know when to run! Hey ho…

The whole core thread, around Christine, was interesting, and she comes across as a very nice person. And talented. But strangely it’s the story of the group as a whole I find most compelling, even when, as here, related through the prism of one particular member.

In some ways this is an amazing five star film. In others, it’s a bit below par. The visual aesthetics are pretty sublime. The style of acting, whist admittedly funny, is so mannered as to oscillate between charming and annoying.

The ensemble cast, headed up by Ralph Fiennes, is incredible. But, as with the hyper mannered m.o. of the entire film, this is both a strength and a weakness.

The plot, convoluted and bizarre – Byzantine seems an apt term – really is, the McGuffin of McGuffins. And once again that speaks to the schizoid tendencies of this film. It’s simultaneously brilliant and rather pointless or meaningless.

Can a film be nothing more than an assemblage or collage of pretty or amusing tableaux? That’s essentially what this is. In a way, this makes it a perfect expression – and a frightening, almost damning condemnation- of our times.

As art it’s stunningly beautiful. And as a kind of love letter to art itself, and even a whole melange of certain types of art, architecture, even culture, it’s terrific.

But despite its frothy weightless beauty there’s a cold vacuity in there as well, as regards the lost or vanished but perhaps always imaginary world it conjures up. As a kind of orgy of aestheticism it becomes detached from any form or reality.

Wow! What a great film. Set in the early ‘70s, and chronicling the childhood of a fatherless boy*, who finds solace and inspiration under the wing of his bar owner uncle.

I love the early ‘70s aesthetics of this film, and just the whole visual vibe of small town America of that era, at least as portrayed here. The particularly American style of individual suburban wooden homes, all slightly different, really appeals. The era is also cherry-picked somewhat for great music, funky duds, nice wheels, and those really quite beautiful American homes.

And this is no stupid action adventure sci-fi superhero bollocks either, just plain ol’ humdrum ‘real life’. Based on a memoir of the same name, it’s not so humdrum, truth be told, as JR gets into Yale – his mother’s dream – and his family and friends, despite a mostly absent father, are quite a colourful bunch.

There’s a lot of heart and humanity in this film. And many moments I loved, such as when uncle Charley opens his cupboard to reveal a sizeable stash of books. This is his auto-didact’s library, and he exhorts the young JR to read them all! That, to me, is kind of heart/brain porn, if you know what I mean.

Right now I can’t be doing with any more of a synopsis, or unravelling it all. I just really dig it. The acting is great; very engaging. The production is fantastic, Clooney does his job really well.

Daniel Ranieri and Tye Sheridan as JR the child and JR the young man are terrific, as is Ben Affleck, as the kindly self-educated uncle Charley. Indeed, the whole cast acquit themselves admirably. A real heartwarming feel good movie. Thanks, GC!

*Absent rather than nonexistent!

Part the second, or a few further thoughts.

Ok, so I said I wouldn’t try and unravel this. But I guess Ah cain’t he’p maself’!

So, one or two further thoughts… The first is that this is, despite several female characters, the strongest of whom – both as a person and in terms of the film’s focus – is JR’s mom, a film about a boy becoming a man. Or put another way, boyhood and manhood/masculinity/maleness, or whatever one might call it.

It’s also mostly about how a boy relates to his elders – there’s a great if very brief scene that underscores that, early in the film (when JR passes a room full of dancing kids, only to watch uncle Charley at rest, before wandering off alone) – only really becoming more focussed on his peers once he gets to Yale. And even then they are now ‘young men’, and mostly looking forward, not backwards.

As much as it’s main focus is on the male condition, there is more than just a nod to the ladies’ experiences. But whilst it’s all quite sensitively handled, there is, like Charley’s homespun code of manhood, imparted to JR at the bar, a rather old-fashioned vision of male/female relations at the core of the story. And, like the fags and booze, in today’s times this can look almost as ‘quaint’ as the seventies visual aesthetics.

But for ageing men like Clooney, and me, all of this can be somewhat more deeply bittersweet that the surface appearances might convey. And this aspect of the film is amplified by JR’s affairs with Sidney. Unlike the unrequited loves of my youth, whose potent effects on my development have, for better or worse, shaped my entire life, JR’s advances are requited, albeit not quite to his satisfaction.

This thread of the plot prevents the whole thing from becoming too cloyingly ‘feel good’, as JR has to contend with not only an absent father, but thwarted young love.

One final observation on the more critical ‘unweaving the rainbow’ side would be this: when the ornery Grandpa Maguire (played terrifically by Christopher ’Doc’ Lloyd) scrubs up and takes JR to the ‘father’s breakfast’ at school, there’s a scene where he charms JR’s teacher by revealing his own well developed (if otherwise rarely deployed) critical intellect.

It’s my own experience and observation that such a scenario – whilst within the realms of possibility – reeks of a certain self-indulgent fantasy. In all probability the person on the receiving end of such ‘insights’ (whether these are right or wrong or chime with my own perceptions/beliefs, etc) has to work hard to conceal – poorly, usually – their disinterest. Such poils of wisdom more normally elicit responses ranging from boredom to hostility.

Gramps has worn out his welcome on such things back at his home. But JR’s teacher is, it appears, smitten. He has scrubbed up well, and he can be quite charming. But the old fart back home side of his portrayal looks, to me, and rather sadly, the more realistic face of such a character.

So, in the end I couldn’t resist a bit of analysis. And I didn’t even really touch on the whole bit about Yale and JR’s buddies there, or the barflies at Dicken’s, or the NY Times journo’ bits. There’s plenty of narrative meat, albeit somehow both rich and lean, to this ‘flick’.

For me, in these days of sci-fi and superheroes, and crime capers and rom-com chick-flicks, this is a rare and welcome kind of film, that speaks very directly to me. I mean, the music, for example; almost (but not quite!) every track used throughout the film is stuff I love. And ending with Steely Dan’s ‘Do It Again’? Ah, sheer bliss…