£11.50 total spend. Ultimate Lessons 2 was good value and a great listen. Saint Germain Des Pres Cafe was right up my street as well – looks like there’s loads in that series. And I love Who’s That Lady by the Isley Brothers which my mum had on a cheap hits comp when I was a kid.
I didn’t really know who Danny Kruger was before I read this profile in the Guardian today. It’s pretty wild. Regular readers will know I’m quite interested in socialism and Christianity, and generally speaking a little knowledge of Christianity will expose the hypocrisy of most Christian folk on the right.
Kruger seems to be in a different place, as we see in the paragraph below:
“I think that socialism is in heaven,” he says. “The problem with socialists is they don’t accept the fall of man. They try to create heaven on Earth with the assumption that if we somehow just got our institutions or culture right, we could be synonymous beings and all behave nicely to each other.” Wait, I say, checking I have heard correctly. Heaven is socialist? “Heaven is a socialist state,” he says. “The effort of socialists is to bring heaven on Earth, with the state in the position of God. That is not a good idea. That’s because no state of human beings can be all good or all powerful.”
I completely accept that most systems of power lead to corruption and abuse, but to use the fall of man as a reason not to pursue the improvement of people’s lives through state action seems a pretty extraordinary position for a politician.
I’m probably going to be thinking about this for quite some time…
Jeffrey Lewis played La Belle Angele a couple of weeks ago and I was there, going straight from the Royal Infirmary after seeing my daughter and new grandchild.
Jeffrey was manning the merch stall before the show and I picked up a couple of comics and his Watchmen book. I realised I didn’t have a copy of my own comic to give him, but la di da… I always have copies in my bag in case I meet some much admired creative person while out, but I don’t usually take a bag to gigs.
Jeffrey’s third song, which I hadn’t heard before, was about how he doesn’t keep anything people give him (including “that poetry book in an edition of nine”), so I think things probably worked out for the best.
Jeffrey’s opening song was People Were Morons and the whole show was just great.
Support was from Sergeant Buzfuz, who I didn’t know previously, but this history of medieval papacy was both entertaining and informative, and right up my street.
This month’s theme was West, hence Rawhide, Apache, America (from West Side Story), Buffalo Stance, Leroy’s Boots and Devo (West Ham) and Go West.
Next month’s theme is Songs You Never Get Bored Listening To…
We only got round to four of my selections on the theme of “really got you excited”, but Grandmaster and Melle Mel did get a rewind (I think that’s what the young people say 😉 ).
Silver Dollar Forger and People Who Died really power forwards and are in themselves just exciting. My kids would dance excitedly to Warm Leatherette when they were wee, and the song is about getting excited in car crashes. White Lines is just great and I was pretty excited to hear it performed by Tackhead at the Voodoo Rooms a couple of years ago.
The theme next time is West. So far I’ve got Go West by the Cult and the Barmy Army album which is full of West Ham terrace chanting.
I’ve hardly seen any examples of Robson Green’s acting but I think his round Britain travelogue show on the BBC is quite watchable and he recently shot an episode in Longniddry with Mark Benton who I am a big fan of. However, I remember attending a wedding in Sunderland many years ago where there was much bitching about him, so I know not everyone likes him. Maybe that’s a Sunderland thing 😉
Anyway, whatever his own merits as an actor, according to this interview in the Guardian he gave us Ralph Ineson, so a big thank you for that. And thanks to York Mystery Plays as well — I went once with my mum when Christopher Timothy was Jesus,
[Ineson] got involved with the York Mystery Plays – a tradition that’s been going, on and off, since the mid-14th century: a Bible story told every year, once performed on a roaming cart, then, by the time Ineson did it in 1992, at the York Theatre Royal. All the characters were played by the people of York, except for one professional actor, who that year was Robson Green.
“He was pretty lonely on his own, sat in his hotel. We’d go out for a drink and I ended up sharing a dressing room with him. And he said: ‘You’re not wedded to being a teacher, are you?’ I wasn’t, although I did enjoy it, but I hadn’t been to drama school, I wasn’t classically trained. He said: ‘Go home and watch TV tonight, look at the characters you could play.’ So I watched a soap, I watched the nine o’clock drama, and there were about five people I thought I could play.”
Monday: breakfast at Club Sandwich in Haymarket (we had been planning on breakfast at Platform 5 but they weren’t doing food that morning) – saw my old pal Danny in the street while killing time before the train – Easter Dalry House and Distillery Lane chimney – train to Kings Cross – traditional pint at the Dolphin – walk across town in the hot sun to our Easy hotel in Norfolk Place, Paddington – more booze at the Royal Exchange pub in Paddington who have a sale of Ray Lowry cartoons and prints
Tuesday: our much planned walk across London, from the South East (Bromley) to the North West (Kilburn) – travel to starting point at Bromley slowed by tube disruption – train from Victoria to Bromley South – Wetherspoons breakfast at the Richmal Crompton – three stink pipes spotted on route (points!) – coffee and cake at the Horniman Museum cafe – crossed the Greenwich Meridian (according to the pavement) – Beckenham Place Park – crossed the River Ravensbourne – Dulwich village – concrete house – Havelock Walk street art – Bon Scott memorial plaque – V2 memorial plaque – Grafton Dance School – Judith Kerr primary school – street art – beer break at the Half Moon Herne Hill – Railton Road – jerk chicken and patties at Maureen’s Kitchen – British Interplanetary Society – Little Portugal – Bonnington Square community garden – cake and squash at the Bonnington Cafe kindly offered outside opening hours – over Vauxhall Bridge – more beer at the White Swan in Vauxhall Bridge Road – Victoria Station – Grosvenor Place – across Hyde Park to Marble Arch as bikes whizz by – Edgeware Road – Paddington Old Cemetry – Guinness and Scotch eggs at the Kilburn Arms, walk complete, tube back to Paddington from
Wednesday: the Globe on Lisson grove, a great wee pub – Marylebone Station – Ada Lovelace at St Marylebone Parish Church – Where We Once Played by Edward Rollitt at the Bomb Factory Marylebone – Marylebone High Street charity shops – Brunswick Centre – Duke of Cumberland empty plinth in Cavendish Square – Duke of Kendal pub in Paddington – Tulip wands cycle lane in Sussex Gardens – cat in a window in Norfolk Place
Thursday: solo expedition to the West Kensington standing stones – Greggs breakfast – Hyde Park Italian Garden – Record and Tape Exchange (£47 spend on first visit in 35 years) – Palace Garden Terrace – Barkers department store – pint of bitter at the Anglesea Arms, my regular back when i worked at – the Institute of Cancer Research – bought notebook at Librairie La Page – Night Side of Nature show at Purdy Hicks gallery (as recommended by Stewart Lee) – Brompton Road – Beatrix Potter vs Princess Diana – gates of Brompton Cemetry – Earls Court redevelopment – poutine at the Elm in North End Road – West Kensington standing stones (no idea how long they’ve been there) – Lillie Road Recreation Ground – Holyport Road in Fulham where I stayed in 1986/7 – Greyhound pub/venue no more (closed up Southern Belle) – Keir Hardie house in Hammersmith – tube back to Paddington – Sussex Arms with bizarre aviation theme
Friday: Greggs breakfast – train to Bristol – YMCA shop, didn’t buy dinosaur, Jan got skater boy soft shoes
Saturday: Palestine museum – Rough Trade, my new favourite record shop (£44 spend) – picked up two old Mighty World of Marvels at Mike’s Comics in St Nicholas Market – YMCA shop 10 books – late night hotel fire alarm
Sunday: lunch at Crispy Dosa, “you two always order the same” – hotel drinks with Chris and Julie
Monday: Wetherspoons – six and a half hour train journey home – Katie and Kerry – leaking air conditioning – missed Pans train by tiny margin – welcomed home with tea and biscuits
I’ve just finished reading The Last Party by John Harris, which was a great read and a good summing up of everything that was right and wrong about Britpop and Britain in the 90s and beyond. See also Shifty by Adam Curtis which I just watched on the iPlayer.
Of course it mentions The Good Mixer in Camden, Graham Coxon and Food Records local which used to feature regularly in the NME gossip column.
The funny thing is I used to drink there regularly in 1988/1989 when it was an old man pub for Irish people and also a magnet for the Cork folk I used to hang out with. Mick Lynch from Stump drank there but I don’t think any of my Cork friends knew him personally. They did Sunday dinners and served Beamish and I watched the first Frank Bruno / Mike Tyson fight there even though I don’t like boxing.
Anyway, here’s John Harris’ description of what it was like just a few years later…
I don’t remember seeing Alan Bennett, Morrissey, Beryl Bainbridge or anyone from Madness.
Way back in 2021 I had the idea of walking round the Edinburgh City Bypass, a local equivalent to Iain Sinclair and friends walking round the M25 in his book Orbital. Jan and I did the first section, from the old Musselburgh Travelodge, taking in the Newton Tower and getting the bus home from Dalkeith.
At the time I thought the whole walk from Musselburgh to South Gyle could be done in a single day without too much planning. I kept thinking about this walk but couldn’t persuade anyone to go with me. I think people could see it was too much to comfortably do in a day. Well, yesterday, I did it.
I didn’t start at the old Travelodge, instead heading straight for the Old Craighall Road. This was the only concession to shortening the journey at the expense of proximity to the bypass. I think it was the right decision because the whole journey took from 09:50 to 18:05, covering 19.5 miles and 39k steps. By the end I was pretty exhausted physically and mentally and was very aware that if I had persuaded someone else along they would likely have found it a tough ask.
I posted my progress through the day to Bluesky and was very pleased with all the likes and encouragement. Thanks Bluesky friends.
Jan followed my progress on her phone and saved the image below as a rough guide to where I was. From South Gyle to Waverley is my tram journey, which just happened to be on the first day of tap-on tap-off.
The full route was:
Drum Farm has lots of businesses on site including antiques, sheds, records and horse blanket laundry. I couldn’t believe how many records were in this shed and then I couldn’t believe how good they were. Sensibly priced (lots at £10 to £25) and sorted by genre (I think). Could easily have spent the whole day there.
Did I learn anything on this great walk? Well, I now know that Burdiehouse is possible a corruption of Bordeaux House and lots of French people used to live round there
Last year Jan and I went to the Railway Tavern in Prestonpans High Street for the first time. We have lived in the Pans for more than 20 years, but we didn’t used to be very brave about going to new places.
The pub is, of course, perfectly fine. Maybe they don’t get many new people in because staff and punters were quite sweary with each other, but that’s no bother to us. The lease is up for sale and so could well be under new management by the time you read this.
Anyway, I have been curious about a couple of things for a while now:
Well, I’ve made some progress on answering these questions. The image below is from the National Library of Scotland side by side historical map page for Prestonpans dated 1840-1880, scale six inches to the mile (link here)
It looks like Hamilton House was called the North British Railway Tavern some time back in the C19, when it would have been handy for the new railway station (called Tranent Station at the time).
I don’t have any proof yet, but I wonder if the name, staff and clientele of the North British Railway Tavern moved downhill to the current Railway Tavern location when Hamilton House became a private residence once more. And they dropped the North British bit because they no longer had a relationship with the North British Railway Company, or just thought it wasn’t needed.
And the battlements? Another old map shows the High Street building as barracks, so now that makes sense. By coincidence Hamilton House was used for that purpose as well at some point.
