The Last Ditch

A Merry Christmas to all

 

h/t The Daily Beast

Drawing a (dotted) line

Until the Great Writ of habeas corpus runs again in the land that conceived it; until the presumption of innocence applies once more and "suspect" means only what the dictionary says; until the right of silence applies again, I cannot promise not to write here. But a line has to be drawn, at least for a while.

I can say nothing useful until the coalition government has had the chance to make those changes and many more. So far, they have spoken and written fair words, but handsome is as handsome does and they have already one very black mark against their name. I cannot quite believe that they have already used the very "control orders" (house arrests of innocents) whose introduction to Britain inspired me to start this blog.

As it happens, there are also changes in my own life I must deal with. Great, sad changes that make blogging - at least for a while - seem a very paltry thing. So forgive me if I fall silent for a while.

Leadership, set to music.

I am at a "leadership retreat" in St Petersburg, where we 80 or so attendees are supposed to learn not just about our industry, but how to be better leaders. The presentations so far have been interesting and the company is fascinating. Tonight we dine in some Russian palace or other. I am lucky to have such a life.

Browsing my RSS feeds before dinner I came across this video of a talk by conductor Benjamin Zander. Watch it, and I think you will agree that this man is a real leader.

h/t Café Grendel

Apropos of nothing in particular

A new friend in Second Life introduced me to this video today. Country music can be embarrassing, I know. My daughters mock me relentlessly for my "redneck" tastes. I can handle it. Sometimes a good country song is just so real, that you have to love it (however much you think you shouldn't). This song is a case in point. The emotion in the singer's face is more authentic, I suspect, than all the faux sentimentality in a year of British TV news.

Look down on country music if you will, but I think this is an honest song, well sung. Hang your prejudices on a chair back and give it a listen.

Show of Hands at the Royal Albert Hall

Link: Royal Albert Hall | Royal Albert Hall.

What a room! It was my first time there and I have to say that the Albert Hall is worth a visit in its own right.  Show of Hands put on a good evening's entertainment too, together with an assortment of guests (including Tom Robinson of TRB fame - an unexpected reminder of student days).

I went to see the concert entirely on the strength of Show of Hands' YouTube hit, "Roots" and their latest album, "Witness," but I enjoyed most of their other stuff too. Phil Beer is a great musician and Steve Knightley is a gently charismatic performer. The unofficial third member of the group, Miranda Sykes, is hugely talented. Her solo rendition of "Perfect" was an unexpected highlight. However, the evening left me with mixed feelings.

I have a weakness for folk music but am often repelled by the English variety. At its worst it tends to nostalgia, whingeing and naive soft-Leftishness. I love "Roots"  in part because it is an assertive, if not actually an aggressive, song, It's not the usual maudlin lament for poorer, nobler times.

Reading through the posts on various folk websites, I can see the song provokes strong feelings. Many folk fundamentalists cannot mention it without dark and unjustified references to the BNP. These are people who can only love an England that was never there. The unhealthy confusion of patriotism with xenophobia is one of the main things wrong with modern England. She can never prosper until her people can love her again, without shame.

I had briefly hoped "Roots" was a sign that might be about to happen. Certainly, when Steve Knightley sings

I've lost St George in the Union Jack; it's my flag too and I want it back

there is a real frisson. The song almost has the potential to be a revolutionary anthem against the Scottish Raj. One could imagine Gordon Brown being lynched from a Westminster lampost while an English crowd sang

Haul away boys, let them go
Out in the wind and the rain and snow
We've lost more than we'll ever know
Round the rocky shores of England

Any revolutionary fantasies were soon quelled, however, by the sight of the crowd. The SOH fan-base is made up of all the Guardian-reading aunts you have ever known. It's a family entirely composed of be-fleeced or be-cardiganned mumsy teachers. And that's just the men. Our relief when the house lights went down turned to amusement as acres of steel-grey hair shimmered gently in the footlights. And then, dear God, they started to move to the music. The song that brought us there poses a question;

The Indians, Asians, Afro-Celts
It's in their blood, below their belt
They're playing and dancing all night long
So what have they got right that we've got wrong?

The answer seems to be that they have rhythm, while we twitch in an embarrassing manner.

Mrs P and I felt like intruders. We had sat down, uninvited, in an enormous staff room during an NUT strike meeting. We had a childish urge to shout obscenities, not least because these kindly, boring people  were lamenting the loss of the country they had themselves destroyed. Is that harsh? Perhaps. But I would bet good money that a majority of those swaying spastically in the Albert Hall last night vote Labour. They were not girding their loins to retake England for free-minded yeomen, alas. I suspect their nostalgia is more for 1946, when the dreams of Labourism had yet to be shattered.

As we set off into the night to find a taxi, they boarded their buses back to the provinces, or picked up their Audis from the car parks. They were not comfortable in London. We know how that feels. We remember being just such awkward provincials once.We are glad we aren't any more.

They couldn't wait to get back to their England. The quest for ours continues.

Tom Paxton

I have always liked a lot of Tom Paxton's work. This, despite the fact that he's an addle-brained leftist and that I personally saw him sign a petition in support of the IRA when I was a naieve youth waiting backstage for his autograph at the no-longer-with-us Free Trade Hall in Manchester. Those were the days when he could still fill such a venue.

This piece (a free download from his website, where you can find many other of what he calls his "short shelf-life songs") is a rehash of his Vietnam classic Lyndon Johnson told the Nation.

It pains me to say that it works pretty well, as unfair as it is.

Show of Hands

This, apparently, is number 6 in the HMV download charts. Give it a listen, playing close attention to the lyrics. That this should be popular gives me hope that England may yet awaken. It is for sale at iTunes and HMV.

H/T Andrew Ian Dodge