Another peach from Sky Atlantic. What a channel it is.
It’s a deeply black comedy with a character list of bastards. Maybe not Succession-level bastards, but not far short.
Set at an idyllic Hawaiian Island hotel resort, only reachable by boat, a bunch of blowhard white privileged twats arrive to be met by a bunch of deeply troubled staff that range from the recovering alcoholic/narcotic gay Hotel manager to a striving native American spa host and wellness instructor.
Each character is flawed in one way or another and what this does is light a touch paper to a week of increasing mayhem where their individual psychoses and prejudices build to a constant underscore of Hawaiian folk music that thrums and crescendoes as each of the six episodes unfolds.
It would be bad of me to spoil this by revealing the plot. Instead I’ll just say that each character is given sufficient airtime to reveal their true character as they impact on each others’ lives in a totally unpredictable way.
This is very fine writing and character acting, across the board.
Truly outstanding drama that is laugh out loud funny but deeply troubling. Proper black comedy at its finest.
The planets collided a little on this one. My friend Morvern Cunningham raved about Octavia E. Butler in her brilliant Unknown Pleasures post and then my book group also put it to the vote to read. So, read it I did.
At first, and on a very superficial level, this appears to be a sort of ‘Outlander on Slave Plantations’ which is to completely overlook its quality as a piece of work.
Yes, the device (time travelling between 1976 and 1815) is very similar but the depth of the novel is far greater than anything in Outlander.
The book engages with notions of slavery, female identity and male dominance, love and family, indeed humanity itself.
After a slow start, where it seems to me that Butler is struggling to find her voice for this complex novel, (and the dialogue initially suffers) she gradually gets into her stride and what emerges is a true masterpiece.
Is it, as described, sci fi? I think not, probably closer to fantasy but in reality it’s almost a historical polemic on how slavery is such an evil slight on humanity.
The central character, Dana, is a black Californian woman married to a white man, Kevin. This is, in itself, quite unusual for the 1970’s, but transport that back to 1815, and Maryland, and you have a scenario that is inconceivable.
Dana is the ‘protector’ of Rufus, the son of a plantation owner and linked to Dana’s birth line. He gets into a variety of ‘scrapes’ that means that Dana, his ‘guardian angel’, has to come from the future to extricate him.
This brings with it all sorts of challenges, first of all who is this weird woman wearing ‘pants’, secondly why is she so educated, thirdly why is her ‘master’ (her husband) so close to her?
Several leaps across time, of varying lengths of stay, immerse Dana and Kevin into the past and expose them to the hideous savagery of the slave life (despite Rufus’ plantation being at the fairer end of the scale).
What Butler achieves in this magnificent novel is a complete immersion into an alien culture that is entirely believable and a beautifully crafted series of relationships between Dana, Rufus, her husband Kevin and several of her ‘fellow slaves’.
It’s complex but it’s readable (even if it’s horrifying in parts) and the brilliance of the storytelling is totally immersive.
A strong recommendation from me.
It seems almost inconceivable that this has not been made into a movie yet but a scoot through IMDB suggests that in these #BlackLivesMatter times, where the novel is so pertinent, it has finally been recognised and a TV adaptation is in pre-production. That will be a must watch.
Liars, cheats, self-centred blowhards with empty promises and corrupt motives.
Each and every last one of them.
Right?
Well, actually, no.
Not if you have political ambitions in Leith that is.
First off, you have Deidre Brock, the sitting SNP MP for Leith and North Edinburgh and then there’s her closest competitor, Labour’s Gordon Munro.
A long term Councillor for City of Edinburgh Council I had the great pleasure to build on my Dad’s friendship with Gordon when I first met him as a fellow Board Director at The Royal Lyceum Theatre Company, one of Gordon’s many Council responsibilities (funnily enough that’s where I first met Deidre too).
I was immediately impressed with Gordon’s enthusiasm and contribution – so many of these posts are really statutory and lead to disinterested contributions, if any at all. Not Gordon.
It helps that he is a passionate lover of so many art forms, not least theatre. (Oh, and the mighty Hibees.)
But as time went on I started to stumble upon him all over the shop. In art galleries, at gigs, in the theatre. And then I called on his help to find a new home for Forth Children’s Theatre.
Boom!
He was straight in there, scouring Leith for us, putting forward all sorts of suggestions (including a disused car park under the Banana Flats).
I read some of his work in The Leither. I chatted to him in corridors. I quickly formed a deep respect for a man who wears his heart firmly on his sleeve and makes no compromises with his political beliefs.
To say Gordon is left of centre would be to downplay his passion for the Labour movement. An all-consuming passion that manifests itself in all the values of Labour that I love (although I vote SNP).
This is what politics should be about. A man of the people who cares wholly in his rage against the machine.
I love that about him. I love that about great politicians of any hue (and actually there are a lot of them that aren’t what I painted in my opening paragraph).
But, if you want to see what integrity looks like in flesh and bone, look no further than Gordon Munro.
An actual hero in my book. (And the only other person on earth I know that likes the outstanding Yasmine Hamdan.)
Now read about his heroes.
And, come the revolution. Back Gordon.
My Favourite Author or Book
Victor Serge. I first encountered Serge in 1983 when I bought a battered second hand copy of his ‘Memoirs of a Revolutionary’ published by Oxford books in 1963. It’s a great read and a fantastic insight into the tumults of the first half of the 20th Century. When the New York Review of Books brought out an edition which included material omitted from the edition I knew I bought it right away. I was not disappointed its still a great read. NYRB have also brought out his notebooks which cover 1936-1947 and his humanity shines through despite recording the murder and deaths of several friends. A threat that he constantly lived under too as Stalin’s GPU kept him under observation. They also publish some of his fiction too. His writing is superb and his volume of poetry ‘ A blaze in the desert’ is worth seeking out . “ All the exiles in the world are at the Greek informer’s café tonight,” is a line from his poem ‘Marseilles’ written in 1941 and a film script in one line. But don’t take my word for it here is what Susan Sontag thinks of Serge : “ Serge is one of the most compelling of twentieth-century ethical and literary heroes”. She’s right.
The Book I’m reading
As always I have several on the go. ‘Paint Your Town Red – How Preston took back control and your town can too’ by Matthew Brown & Rhian E Jones’ is essential reading. ‘The Divide – A brief guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions’ by Jason Hickel infuriates and illuminates in equal measure.’To Mind your Life- poems for Nurses & Midwives’ is life affirming. ‘ The way to play – coaching hints and technique’ by Inverleith Petanque Club is to hand as I’ve taken up this sport during Covid. ‘ Fixture List season 2021/22 Hibernian FC is essential year round reading for me as a lifelong Hibs supporter.
The book I wished I had written
Is still locked in my head and unlikely to make it out .
The book I couldn’t finish
Funnily enough I had a conversation recently with Ian Rankin where we both said we started but could not finish ‘Confessions of an English Opium Eater’ by Thomas de Quincey. Turgid.
The book I’m ashamed I haven’t read
‘The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner’ by James Hogg. I know, I know it inspired Stevenson , it’s a classic etc but life gets in the way. Maybe one day.
My favourite film
Too many but if its one only then it has to be ‘Casablanca’.
My favourite Play
It has to be Peter Brooks ‘ Mahabarata’ in Glasgow . 3 nights in a row of the most sublime theatre I’ve ever seen. The whole audience, which included a chunk of Scottish Actors, were on our feet shouting for more.
My favourite podcast
I don’t do podcasts but I do recommend the blog ‘Stand up and Spit’ by the poet Tim Wells. Great stuff and always interesting.
The box set I’m hooked on
‘American Gods’. A great cast and a good realisation of a favourite book.
My favourite TV series
Tiswas. It just broke all the rules and was great fun too. Chris Tarrant , Sally James , Spit the Dog and the Phantom Flan Flinger along with some cool music . What more do you want.
My favourite piece of Music
‘Teenage Kicks’ by the Undertones. Perfection. When Peel left us and Hibs adopted it for a while as our tune part tribute and part due to the boy band look team we had at the time I was chuffed.
My favourite dance performance
I’ve been lucky enough to see Nureyev, Wayne Sleep, Ballet Rambert, Michael Clarke but it has to be Carlos Acosta with ‘On before’. He has this amazing ability that some football players have of being able to hang in the air. His company will be worth catching when we get the chance to enjoy live performance again.
The last film/music/book that made you cry
Film – Motorcycle Diaries – Walter Salles. I know that’s Guevara’s companion in the last scene watching the plane take off. Alberto Granado at 84 was not allowed in to the USA for the premiere at Sundance despite Robert Redford’s best efforts.
Music- Kathryn Joseph at Pilrig Church Hall. Go see here at Edinburgh Park in August.
Book- Notebooks 1936-1947 Victor Serge. So many deaths.
The lyric I wished I had written
‘Happy Birthday’ – not the Altered Images one. Imagine the royalties (and yes I know there’s a story to this lyric).
The song that saved me
Not a song but a request to dance the Gay Gordon’s at a wedding in 1985. We’ve been together ever since.
The instrument I play
The voice. Badly.
The instrument I wish I’d learned
The piano.
If I could own one painting it would be
‘Nighthawks at the Diner’ – Edward Hopper. I have had a print of this up on the wall since 1983.
The music that cheers me up
A whole bunch of 45’s from season 1977/78. Punk Rock shook things up and even Bowie upped his game with ‘Heroes’. We were lucky.
The place I feel happiest
Home with our family our two daughters , son in law and the best thing to happen during lockdown our granddaughter Ada.
My guiltiest cultural pleasure
Alcohol. It’s got me in and out of trouble. Seen me on my hands and knees outside a nightclub in Tangier. Arrested in Burnley. Stealing a Police hat from the back of a Police car outside a Police station. Chased by a knife wielding pimp in a Miami hotel. And I keep coming back for more.
I’m having a fantasy dinner party. I’ll invite these artists and authors
Dead – David Bowie, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart , Frida Kahlo, Jesus so the wine would flow , Oscar Wilde.
Alive – Brian Eno, Marianne Faithfull, Annie Lenno , Jan Gehl, the Singh Twins, John Byrne.
And I’ll put on this music
Bessie Smith, Yasmine Hamdan, Calypso Rose, Ludovico Einaudi, Max Richter.
It’s the first Tuesday of The Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Never the peak time for Edinburgh to be totally overwhelmed, but usually by now it’s heaving nonetheless. For maximum chaos one has to wait for the final weekend that usually coincides with an English Bank Holiday and the mass movement of Knightsbridge and Sloan Square to our hallowed streets.
We start with a quick drink in the venerable Summerhall’s Royal Dick Courtyard.
There’s people here, sure, but no shows. Not today anyway. You see, Summerhall only has the one venue this year and today, for some reason, all the performers need a day off. So soon?
So the atmosphere is pleasant but subdued.
Next stop, Assembly George Square, the city’s thriving epicentre of boozing, alongside the Pleasance Courtyard, in any other year. The Box Office ticket board displays very, very few shows available today, maybe 12. Again, only one venue, the Speigeltent, is operational, plus an outdoor music stage. Next door The Underbelly’s business is, well, not brisk.
But there’s a long and tedious queue to get into the Gardens, so maybe that augurs well?
Turns out, no. It’s populated, for sure, and nearly every table is taken, but no standing is allowed so it’s a one-in one-out policy that is being applied. So, no lolling about on the grass, no random collisions with people you know and love from the circuit.
The beer is, of course, overpriced as ever, but the ‘atmosphere’ we are usually paying a premium to enjoy is virtually non-existent.
The usual 3,800 or so shows has been slimmed down to maybe 400 live shows and a bunch more online. This does not a festival make. Maybe in a smaller town with no experience of the phenomenon that is the Edinburgh Festival(s) this would work, but here it’s not exactly Ghost Town, but it ain’t Glastonbury either.
We head to the aforementioned Speigeltent for the 8.30 production, a one hander (aren’t they all) production of Dylan Thomas’ magisterial Under Milk Wood.
Guy Masterson directed the brilliant “The Shark is Broken” in 2019 and this, his slightly edited version of Thomas’ masterpiece, is his self-directed and performed effort that he has been touring for 27 years.
It’s pretty good, with an impressive performance on this his 60th birthday.
What we don’t anticipate is a double stage invasion by a man clearly suffering terribly from some form of mental illness. He defies the stewards both times but on the second is escorted politely from the building, albeit not without some consternation on his part. It’s upsetting, but not seemingly for Masterson who battles stoically onwards.
The show is not as good as I thought it would be. It’s just too rushed is my main criticism, but it has merit and we can hardly feel cheated at under £20 for two tickets.
But the malaise of the streets transports inside the fairly cavernous tent with maybe 50 in an audience that could hold ten times that number, or more.
We leave, a little deflated, a little underwhelmed by our whole evening.
It feels like a failed experiment so far. Too few people making too little frisson of excitement.
It’s all a little sad.
Not quite a wake, but not much of a festival.
To next year and normality. (Although I will venture out again).
I’m loving the Olympics. I really am. My highlight so far has to be the sharing of the High Jump Gold between the French and Quatari athletes. Either could have won but they are pals (and you get joint bronzes in other sports eg Boxing) so why not share it?
Another highlight has been the outstandingly consistent commentary across multiple sports of Alistair-Bruce Ball who has a very balanced view on things. Buncie is the best pundit on the boxing and Taekwondo but his assassination of the Cuban boxing team this morning. where he accused them of stealing all the bananas (and fruit), may come back to haunt him.
Michael Johnson can ‘do one’. (Constantly talking over Denise Lewis.)
And that red table in the BBC studio that casts a red cast over everyone’s face and body is a technical disaster. What were they thinking of?
But one point that caught my ears this morning was that in a bid to keep the Olympics ‘relevant’ the Olympic Committee runs a ‘one sport in, one sport out’ policy.
I like that. It makes sense.
One new sport for Tokyo was skateboarding and that strikes me as really great and ‘relevant’ decision as it has long been a young person’s global street sport and to elevate to Olympic status is bang on.
The ‘sport’ that sets my teeth on edge, however, (not because it’s for toffs because actually when you hear the Great Britain team speak they sound more like farmers than toffs) is dressage.
I mean, give us a break. Who can afford a horse to start with, never mind train it and transport it to these ridiculous ceremonial events?
And who is the sport star here? The horse or the rider?
It reeks of privilege and must go IMHO. Whether Great Britain is good at it or not.
If you know Scottish advertising, you know Gerry Farrell. My dear friend of many, many years. Nearly 35 in fact.
It was he who got me poached from Hall Advertising to The fledgling Leith Agency. An unexpected happening, but one that made me think maybe I could do my job after all.
Gerry and I lived through a golden age of advertising that included many shenanigans and totally unacceptable behaviour. For instance, there was a hole in the wall of The Leith Agency that Gerry kicked when I failed to sell a second rate piece of work for him. It was, as I recall, a Lion Rampant singing into a microphone for Tennent’s Live. OK. it wasn’t second rate but it wouldn’t be troubling the jury at D&AD, and that wall will testify to Gerry’s passion for doing it right every time.
Gerry is, under all that loudness, bravado and fiery red-haired temper, a quiet and very, very thoughtful soul. A fly fisherman. You cannae flyfish making a fucking racket, I’ll bet.
The work he has done in Leith’s under-priveleged communities shows his generosity. He is also generous to a fault with his advice, his willingness to encourage young talent and to just make our industry better than it already is.
He’s a great teacher too, and a showman. Oh God, a showman. His pitches have been legendary – up there only in theatre and passion with those of the dearly departed Simon Scott.
And he’s a laugh. A fucking loud, hearty, guttural laugher that invites you to laugh with him. And who could resist? The teller of tales has many that are just wonderful.
As you might expect from Gerry his Unknown Pleasures were created with a great deal of thought and are nothing if not thorough. But also shot through with storytelling genius. Take his opening line for example …
“As a little kid and right the way through my plooky adolescence, I spent hours skulking in Morningside Library.” I mean that is just Gerry Farrell to a T. Witty, colloquial but a beautifully turned and welcoming entree for the many corses that follow.
Enjoy this. I sure did.
My favourite author or book
As a little kid and right the way through my plooky adolescence, I spent hours skulking in Morningside Library. Once I’d read the two hundred-odd books in the ‘Fishing’ section, I prowled the fiction shelves, skimming everything with an interesting title or back cover story, zooming in on the dirty bits and filling in the facts of life my mum and dad were too embarrassed to tell me.
As the plooks faded and my ginger hair reached afro proportions, the novelist who came to make the deepest impression on me was John Updike who wrote the ‘Rabbit’ quartet ‘Rabbit Run’, ‘Rabbit Redux’, ‘Rabbit Is Rich’ and ‘Rabbit At Rest’, depicting the life journey of Harry Angstrom, a blue-collar anti-hero on the run from the American Dream just as much as he’s inexorably pulled towards it. As Julian Barnes said in the Guardian:
In Rabbit Redux Harry feels he has “come in on the end” of the American dream, “as the world shrank like an apple going bad”; by the start of Rabbit is Rich he feels “the great American ride is ending”; by the end of Rabbit at Rest “the whole free world is wearing out”.
Years later, aged 21, I met him in Rome at a talk he gave and we had a wee blether. I told him how much I’d learned about sex from the way he wrote about it and he reminded me that he had twice won the Bad Sex Award, literature’s equivalent of the Razzies.
When I left home for Italy aged 17, the second novel ‘Rabbit Redux’ was my company on the long train journey from Edinburgh to Perugia. It set the tone for my own glorious liberation from my parents and my exciting and occasionally disastrous experiments with drugs, alcohol and naughty girls. I probably learned more about sex, infidelity, father-son relationships, marriage and death from the pages of that book than I learned from my own experiences in later life.
It started a love affair between me and American literature and got me reading Saul Bellow, Kurt Vonnegut and Philip Roth. All these writers taught me the best lesson I’ve learned: don’t take anything in life too seriously, especially yourself.
Will Atkinson picked out ‘Earthly Powers’ by Anthony Burgess in his Unknown Pleasures. That’s in my Top Ten. I read it in an eight-hour binge in a caravan, finally finishing at 4am in the morning, thrilled and wrung out, unable to get a wink of sleep.
My favourite Scottish author by some distance is Kate Atkinson and my two favourites of hers are ‘Life After Life’ and ‘When Will There Be Good News’. I feel like I know her because I used to sit opposite her daughter Helen at the Leith Agency. I’d bring in books for her to give to her mum and she’d bring in books her mum recommended to me.
Finally, if anyone wants a red-hot tip for a thriller, let me recommend ‘Rogue Male’ by Geoffrey Household about a man on a mission to kill Hitler. You won’t put it down till the last page.
The book I’m reading
I’ve just finished ‘Hamnet’ by Maggie O’ Farrell who lives in Edinburgh. It zeroes in on a single catastrophic domestic event – the death of Shakespeare’s son. There may never be a better, more absorbing book about the death of a child. The prose is luminous, the depth of feeling is bottomless and the ending is miraculous.
The book I wish I had written
I’m still waiting for that story to appear in my head. Most writers will tell you not to even bother sitting down to write a book unless you have a story you’re bursting to tell. That’s not happened to me yet although I’m permanently gripped by the IRA’s blowing up of Lord Mountbatten. He was an awful man but nobody deserves to die that way. If I was to write anything it would be a fictionalised version of that. The only part of a book I ever wrote that got published was the title of my son-in-law Adam Kay’s first book ‘This Is Going To Hurt’, his diaries from his time as a junior doctor, currently being turned into a BBC drama. If I got a penny for every copy sold I’d have several million pennies. But I’m happy to make do with my honourable mention in the credits.
The book I couldn’t finish
If a stack of them fell on me, I’d be crushed to death. Most notable was ‘The Master and Margarita’ by Mikhail Bulgakov. Just a chore, so I gave up. Life’s too short. ‘Underworld’ by Don Delillo was another one. I bloody hated ‘American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. And I almost gave up on The Thursday Murder Club but I’m glad I persisted. People kept telling me to read ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I eventually slogged through it but I was never gripped.
Hear Hear. Utter shite. Ed.
The book I’m ashamed I haven’t read
There are plenty of things I’m more ashamed of than not reading somebody’s book. I do love books and I have a secret fantasy about being locked in a library all night. But nobody should be guilt-tripping themselves for not obeying the Culture Police. There are plenty of great books I haven’t read. In my old age I look forward to sitting down for a month and reading all of Shakespeare’s plays because he really is the best writer (of English) that ever lived. Crying shame if you had him forced down your throat at school and never went back to enjoy him in later life.
My favourite film
‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’. One way or another, I’ve been dogged by mental illness in my family all my life and was amazed when my own mental health went off a cliff one day. Jack Nicholson takes Ken Kesey’s novel by the scruff of the neck and gives it a violent shake. My favourite scene is the fishing trip. My favourite bit of dialogue is “What flavour?”…..”Juicy Fruit”. I’m krazy about Kubrick too. Clockwork Orange and The Shining are incredible movies. So powerful I’ve never been able to watch them again.
My favourite play
I rarely visit the theatre but I’m not going to be guilt-tripped about that either. I did love ‘The Bevellers’ by Roddy McMillan which I was taken to as a 13 year-old St Augustine’s RC schoolboy. I remember all the filthy, funny lines like “If he got a hard-on, he’d think it was a fart gone backwards” and “Tell that fireman ma knickers are on fire and he’s the man wi the hose.” I was shocked and delighted in equal measure at the way all my St Augie’s Catholic teachers in the audience fell about when those pearlers got dropped in the salubrious surroundings of the King’s Theatre.
My favourite podcast
Ach, there’s millions but ‘Thirteen Minutes To The Moon’ has been my favourite for a while, especially the second series about the doomed Apollo 13 flight. It still blows my mind to think that there’s more computing power in a bog-standard calculator then than there was in that spacecraft back then. The astronauts and the chain-smoking NASA crew who got them home with old toilet rolls and sticky back plastic are heroes to me.
The box set I’m hooked on
Nothing will ever touch The Sopranos. If you argue otherwise I’ll have you chopped into pork parcels and fed to the fishes.
My favourite TV series
‘Friends’. It hasn’t aged that well – these days at least one of the pals would have to be gay and they certainly couldn’t all be white. But the casting was inspired and I partly credit its warmth and likeability with helping my four kids become the funny, fearless, big-hearted people they are today. I’ll never forget taking them to a holiday house right on the water on the Cote d’Azur for a fortnight. Remind me never again to rent a holiday home with a telly. I couldn’t get them out in the sunshine for hours every day because they were glued to Aniston and Co. The scene where Joey has to improvise a foreskin out of Spam for a casting session is unforgettable. Oh, and Danny de Vito’s turn as a stripper in police uniform. The other night I watched ‘Friends: The Reunion,’ a silly, moving, funny, big-hearted retrospective bringing the friends back together in front of a live audience. Worth it just for Lady Gaga dropping in to do ‘Smelly Cat’ with Lisa Kudrow and a gospel choir.
My favourite piece of music
Nah. You cannot be serious. I could do a different Desert Island Discs every week. I cried half the day when David Bowie died. I love genres, like Motown and the way that inspired superstars like Beyonce and Amy Winehouse. I love ‘Every Time We Say Goodbye’ by Ella Fitzgerald. I love country music and I’d love to visit Nashville. (I spent six years singing and playing in an 11-piece bluegrass band called The Downrights, see photo.) Nina Simone still gives me the chills as does Robert Plant. When I was 13, if I couldn’t be a pilot I wanted to be Mick Jagger. The cowbell at the start of Honky Tonk Women might be the quickest cue to get on the dancefloor. Or is it the opening bars of Nutbush City Limits? I love pure, shallow pop music: Denis Denis by Blondie; anything by Chuck Berry; beautiful slow sad songs like Purple Rain, Perfect Day, Bridge Over Troubled Water and Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay. I think Eminem is an amazing writer. I love every song Jarvis Cocker ever wrote. I never fail to fill up listening to Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony and I still get a kick out of a brass band playing the William Tell Overture (I used to play the French horn). But the sad truth is that I’m a show-off. All the songs I love are songs I can learn and perform. My perfect gig would be me on stage, with me in the audience but I’ll settle for karaoke.
My favourite dance performance
I’m just not into it. I love watching African tribal dances and Mick Jagger prancing and poncing about on stage. Couples who can jive make me jealous. But ballet? Puts me to sleep. I’m a dance Philistine.
The last film/music/book that made me cry
Sophie’s Choice and the Killing Fields unlocked my tear ducts. But honestly, I laugh more than I cry.
The lyric I wish I’d written
Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river You can hear the boats go by, you can spend the night beside her And you know that she’s half-crazy but that’s why you want to be there And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China And just when you mean to tell her that you have no love to give her Then she gets you on her wavelength And she lets the river answer that you’ve always been her lover
The song that saved me
I used to play hymns in my local church group and although I don’t have a strong Catholic faith any more, I’ve always found ‘Amazing Grace’ one of those songs that gets me reaching for my best and bravest voice. It’s a song about being saved despite your wretchedness and that’s a compassionate and helpful way to find comfort when you’re going through a tough time. The other one is a song called ‘Pilgrim’. Steve Earle wrote it in a hurry. He had been asked to say something at a friend’s funeral but his mind went blank so he came up with this beautiful song instead and sang it at the service. It’s a very beautiful song to sing at funerals and it has a chorus that suddenly starts everyone singing along, despite the lump in their throats.
The instrument I play
I have two guitars. A beat up old Yamaha semi-acoustic which I practise on at home and a gorgeous, sunburst Godin 5thAvenue Kingpin (see attached photo) which is my ‘show-pony’ geetar, the one I go on stage with. It has a gorgeous, vintage ‘50s tone so it sounds as good as it looks.
The instrument I wish I’d learned
My son Olly is a genius on the piano and his playing leaves me stone-cold jealous. He can play anything after one hearing and if need be he can take it up or down a semitone in an instant without breaking sweat. He plays regularly for a ska band called Bombskare (but we never talk about that in an airport). I’d also love to be able to play blues harmonica. You can wrench more raw emotion out of that tiny piece of tin than even the sweetest Stradivarius.
If I could own one painting it would be
Anything by Monet, if I had the monet.
The music that cheers me up
Phil Collins. Only joking. Ry Cooder, Bop Till You Drop. Never gets old.
The place I feel happiest
In a boat flyfishing for trout on a Scottish loch. If I had to pick, I’d go for a week’s stay in the Victorian Boathouse on Coldingham Loch.
My guiltiest cultural pleasure
Karaoke, singing ‘Mack The Knife’.
I’m having a fantasy dinner party, I’ll invite these artists and authors
I’ve thought about this a lot but the honest truth is if I was having the ultimate dinner party I’d be treating my best mates and my family at Langan’s Brasserie in London. I’d have their spinach soufflé with hot anchovy sauce, to this day the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life. If you forced me to invite famous people, they’d mostly be dead ones because that would give the occasion added piquancy. I’d have Claude Monet, Bill Nighy, Billy Connolly, Shakespeare, Meryl Streep, Winston Churchill (seated next to Gandhi who he was very rude about), Charles Dickens and Jennifer Aniston (seated next to Jack Nicholson who would try and fail to get off with her). Bowie, Prince, Jeff Lynne, Amy Winehouse and George Harrison would be in the same room, doing requests.
And I’ll put on this music
It would be live music, played by the house band above, doing requests all night, shouted out by me and my dinner guests.
gibberish 