Frederick Trueman, GOM

LISTENING to the radio tribute to Test Match Special the other day I heard a recording of Fred Trueman, who while summarising between overs became diverted into a rant about mobile phones on trains. Fred, in his later years, was a groaner, grumbler and grumpy old man of international standard.

I once heard an impressionist ask an audience to name a subject - any subject - and he would talk about it a la Trueman.

Car Parks, said someone.

'Oh aye, car parks. I don't know. Car parks aren't what they were. Now in my day a car park was a thing to be proud of. There was plenty of room; people were polite and there'd be a man in a uniform with a leather bag round his neck full of change and he'd say, ''Good Morning'', take your money and guide you into your space. Probably an old soldier with a gammy leg. You could have a chat and he might even salute you.

'Look at them now.

'What have you got now? Pot’oles all over the shop and then you’ve got to go looking for one of them damn machines that don’t give change and there’s always some Range Rover taking up two spaces – I can’t be doing with it. There was a time, you know, when parking was a pleasure. I’d rather catch the bus now. Mind you, buses aren’t what they were in my day . . .

I DO HAVE a true story about Fred which demonstrates what a decent man he was. A local golf club had just built a new clubhouse and wanted a guest speaker for the opening festivities.

Their first thought was Tony Jacklin, top English golfer with Lincolnshire connections. Whether they ever got past his agent, I’m not sure, but the upshot was that Jacklin would come, but his fee and expenses were ruinous. Somebody suggested Fred Trueman and provided a phone number. Whoever rang was surprised when it was answered by the unmistakeable tones of the man himself.

‘Aye, I’ll come,’ said Fred. ‘Four hundred. Cash, mind.’

He was asked about expenses.

‘Don’t bother about that. I’ve got my car.’

All they wanted him to do was turn up at 7 pm, make a speech, cut the ribbon, and eat dinner at the committee table, but when Fred heard that members would be gathering in the afternoon, he decided to turn up early. He made a speech when he arrived and spent the afternoon chatting and signing autographs.

He made his official speech later, peppering it with Boycott jokes, and after dinner made a point of dancing with every woman there.

YOU HAVE FRED the grumpy old man, Fred the stand-up comic, Fred the professional Yorkshireman. But for me he will always be Fred the fast bowler. Fiery Fred. One of the few iconic fast bowlers, along with Dennis Lille and Curtly Ambrose, that it was thrilling to watch. All fast, accurate and hostile. Hostile? Murderous.

Fred was the first I saw. I can still visualise him as he turned and began the walk back to his mark, rolling up his shirt-sleeve, tucking in his shirt and pushing back the hunk of black hair from his eyes. No doubt some Brylcreem would be transferred, along with his own sweat, to the ball which he would polish furiously on his red-streaked flannels.

He began his long run and the crowd roared him on. A perfect action propelled the ball towards the stumps, maybe the Yorker which often followed two bouncers; perhaps a third bouncer, for times were harder then. Maybe the batsman managed to dig it out and Fred would glare at him, hands on hips. Then he would turn again, have a friendly word with the umpire, and start the walk back to his mark, tucking in his shirt and pushing back his hair, polishing the ball . . .

Geoffrey Boycott and the Shaggy Horse

It was a warm, sunny afternoon, in the countryside not far from Leeds, and Geoffrey Boycott, opening batsman for Yorkshire and England, was taking a stroll.

He found himself walking along a quiet lane, a line of trees to one side and, behind a hedge on the other, a silky green meadow, where a horse was grazing. It looked up as Boycott passed by and snorted.

A few yards up the lane, Boycott heard a voice behind him.

‘Ay up. Tha’s Geoff Boycott, in’t thee? Call tha'sen a batsman?’

Boycott looked round quickly but there was no-one there. Just the horse, which was now at the hedge and looking over, chewing on a long piece of grass. Boycott shrugged and was about to move on when the voice boomed out again.

‘Is thee deaf, as well as daft. Tha can’t bat for toffee.’

Annoyed now, Boycott shouted back. ‘Who’s there? Come out where I can see thee, tha bastard!’

‘Deaf, daft and blind,’ said the horse – for it was he. ‘No wonder tha was out fust ball yesterday.’

Boycott was so stung by the criticism that any surprise he felt at its being aimed by a horse disappeared.

‘It were a fluke, were that. There were a crack in t’pitch, and any road it should a bin called a no-ball.’

‘Rubbish. My old mam could a blocked that wi ‘er rolling-pin. And I’d’ve ’it for six.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Prove it.’

‘You’re on.’

And so it came to pass that after a brief net at Headingley, where it demonstrated phenomenal technique, the horse found itself preparing to open the batting with Geoffrey Boycott against Lancashire.

They strapped two pairs of pads onto it and hunted around for something it could use as a helmet.

‘Don’t fret thi’sen with that,’ said the horse. ‘’Elmets is for them southern nancy boys. I’ll ‘ave a box, though. Got a spare bucket?’

They arrived in the middle amid a storm of applause, which subsided into an expectant silence, disturbed only by a strange clanking sound from the horse. Boycott's head felt oddly cold.

‘Right,’ said Boycott, ‘you big-headed bugger. You can tek first ball.’

‘Middle and leg,’ the horse called out to the umpire.

‘Which leg?’ came the reply.

The horse placed its bat firmly between its teeth and settled down to await the first ball. It was very fast, but the horse stretched forward, down on one knee and stroked it sweetly through the covers for four. The second was faster but strayed down the leg side and was glanced down over the long leg boundary.

The bowler was enraged and sent down a huge bouncer but the horse was up on its hind legs to hook the ball for six. Two apoplectic no-balls followed, one swept to square leg and the second cracked through mid-wicket. The fourth legal ball was slower and the horse drove it fine of long on so hard that Boycott had to jump to get out of the way. The fifth was impudently swiped over the head of the slips and nearly decapitated third man.

The frustrated bowler wiped away sweat and his tears and attempted a desperate yorker, but the horse took a couple of arrogant steps down the wicket and drove the ball back over the bowler’s head for six.

The crowd was delirious, the fielders catatonic, and the bowler was helped off to lie in a darkened room. Boycott approached the horse and advised it to take a bit more time to get its eye in.

Boycott himself took guard and awaited his first delivery. He played a neat forward defensive stroke to the gap where gully should have been, called for a single and set off. The horse didn’t move.

‘Run, you pillock,’ he cried as he saw the ball being gathered. ‘Run.’

But the horse remained rooted to the spot and a desperate Boycott turned and hurtled back towards his crease only to see his stumps shattered by a grinning wicket-keeper. For a moment he wondered whether there was some way he might argue for mercy, but instead, disconsolately, he removed his gloves and turned towards the pavilion. As he passed the horse, more in sorrow than in anger, he spoke. It was barely more than a whisper.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why? Why didn’t you run?’

‘Run?’ said the horse. ‘If I could run, I’d be at Aintree. Not wasting my bloody time ‘ere.’

Sartre

I was listening to Clive James on the radio the other day. He was chatting in his usual witty way about his new book, Cultural Amnesia. Apparently it's a huge doorstop of a volume, containing over a hundred pen-portraits of cultural 'icons' of the last century and a half. It's had mixed reviews. Here, for example, is A N Wilson in The Times.

The criticisms seem to be that the size and breadth of the book disguise its lack of depth. That instead of providing an analysis of the subject’s contribution to life, the universe and everything, he’s too concerned to be funny and follow some stray thought about the person for the fun of seeing where it leads him. A bit like a blog, really.

I cannot say. I do know that it sounds like the kind of book I’d like to dip into. Clive’s last offering, the title of which I’ve forgotten, dealt , at least in part, with the celebrities he interviewed some years back and he offered very funny accounts of his meetings with such as Burt Lancaster, Bob Mitchum ( we were very close) and Peter Sellers. Clive realised that they were all certifiably mad, of course, but writes of them with clear-eyed but sardonic affection.

I quite like Clive James. I know he’s Australian and a bit too concerned to show what a polymath he is, but he’s affable and intelligent, and I’d be quite happy to spend half an hour in his company. What I don’t like about him is that for a fat bloke, ten years older than I am, he seems to have incredible success with women.

Which leads me on to Jean-Paul Sartre (small picture), whom Clive James (and I) believe to be one of the least prepossessing characters of the twentieth century. Another unlikely Casanova, whose technique was probably to persuade young female students that to sleep with him was a sign of their liberation from bourgeois morality. I expect he failed to mention that such behaviour has characterised not only bourgeois, but also aristocratic and proletarian society since the dawn of time.

It’s one of those strange facets of French culture, namely the 'celebritisation' - is that a word? - of the intellectual. I suppose the last celebrity intellectual we had in Britain was Bertrand Russell, another one who powers of logic were so powerful that women had difficulty arguing that their virtue was worth hanging onto. (I’m beginning to think I should take French lessons, do a PhD in philosophy and carry a joke book around with me.)

I seem to be having trouble sticking to the point.

When I first came across Jean-Paul’s ideas, or the ideas that he propagated, I had to agree with him. There’s no God, or at least no transcendent being that we can know or who’s bothered about us. So it follows that there’s no purpose in life and no absolute morality, no meaning and no hope. And no such thing as human nature. We’re on our own. But we are free. ‘Nothing ain’t worth nothing, but it’s free’ is another way of putting it. Or, ‘Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ Or, 'As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. they kill us for their sport.' Am I starting to sound like Clive James yet?

So, we’re full of angst and despair, but we’re free. Now what? J-P’s first advice is good. Don’t flee into the arms of some religion, ideology or morality that gives you a spurious sense of meaning and purpose. That’s what he calls ‘bad faith’. Existence before Essence. ‘What are you going to do now?’ someone once asked Indiana Jones. ‘I don’t know – I’m making this up as I go along,’ he replies. In other words, I, for example, am not a Blogger. I am one who blogs.

But then Sartre loses it. Like Descartes before him, he’s good at clearing away the undergrowth of received opinion and wishful thinking, but then proceeds to build an equally untenable edifice upon it. He advises creating meaning for ourselves by artistic creation and by political engagement, preferably both at the same time. And by political engagement he means embracing every lunatic left-wing cause that offers its ugly charms to him.

Having pontificated at length about intellectual freedom and campaigning against France’s occupation of Algeria, he ends up a fellow-traveller of the Communist Party, one of Lenin’s ‘useful idiots’, justifying the gulags and handing out propaganda tracts on the street for the benefit of the TV cameras.

Sartre was an ugly, mean-spirited little man, who used his intellectual powers to justify his prejudices and bully others into sharing them. He claimed that ‘existentialism is a kind of humanism’, but contributed to some of the greatest inhumanities ever perpetrated. His great rival, Albert Camus (large picture), was another left-winger but he actually liked people and loved life. He was prepared to condemn cruelty and injustice wherever he found it. Individuals before ideology was his mantra.

I read that just before he died in a car crash, Camus wrote to five different women assuring each of his undying devotion. I doubt he was lying to any of them.

Day 5

It was a shame that the first Test fizzled out in Monday’s rain. Considering the weakness of England’s bowling attack, the West Indies just might have won. Their batsmen, right down to number eleven, had shown a lot of class and character in their first innings to deny England an invincible lead, and it’s not inconceivable that they might have pulled off an heroic win.

Shot of the day on Sunday had to be when Daren Powell strolled down the pitch to an appalling Harmison and casually swotted him to the boundary. ‘I’ve never seen that before,’ said one commentator. ‘What do you call a shot like that?’ ‘Contempt’ came the reply.

England had to hurry along in their second innings. Alastair Cook batted excellently again and Strauss was adequate. Shah failed again and I think it was nerves and sheer desperation getting the better of him. It’s something like eighteen months since he played in his first test match and now it looks as if he’ll be dropped again, probably to make room for Vaughan, who seems to have a divine right to play, whether fully fit and fully performing or not.

It’s a similar situation with Flintoff. How long is it since he put in a match-winning performance? He and Vaughan can’t go on forever living off the glories of the 2005 Ashes series.

But if Flintoff is fully recovered from his ankle injury – if he is – he would justify his place as a bowler. As a batsman he is past it, and in any case, if we want someone who can score a century in double quick time, we have Pieterson, as he proved on Sunday. Not to mention Prior.

Our bowling, that’s the chief concern. Harmison should be a world-class bowler, but looks like a beginner. Plunkett is unreliable and so is Anderson, but both still likely to play in the next test. Ditto Mahmoud. Hoggard is injured. (How’s Simon Jones getting on, I wonder?) Other names raised recently are Onions of Durham and Chris Broad, both untried. Panesar bowled very well, but he can’t win a test match on his own.

Update

The squad has been announced for Friday. I'm not keen, by the way, on these back to back tests. Players with niggling injuries don't have time to recover; others don't have the opportunity to address their faults or prove themselves in a county match; the counties lose out; and the public, deprived of that sense of anticipation, get bored.

As I expected, Vaughan is back. Let's hope it's not just his (rather tarnished reputation) that's earned him his place. Shah dumped, probably forever, poor bloke. Flintoff in the squad, a triumph of hope over experience. And - surprise, surprise - Ryan Sidebottom - tantalised by the thought of escaping from the 'one test club', which he joined six years ago. His dad, Arnie, is also a member.

Crime and Cricket: Scarlet Street.

Edward G Robinson. What an actor - a squat, ugly bullfrog of a man, whose face could scowl with malevolence or, occasionally, crinkle with kindliness.

In the space of three years he appeared in three very different roles: stealing the show in Double Indemnity as the insurance investigator, rattling off dialogue like the machine gun in his gangster years; whispering obscenities into the ear of Lauren Bacall as the loathsome Rocco in Key Largo; and, in contrast, the mild, pathetic and tragic Chris Cross in Scarlet Street, which I have just watched for the third time.

Story

SPOILER ALERT

In Scarlet Street (directed by Fritz Lang) Robinson portrays a middle-aged bank clerk, married for convenience to a shrewish widow and repenting that error of judgment while washing the dishes clad in a rather fetching pinnie. When not out shopping for nice pieces of liver and slicing it wistfully with a spotlit carving knife, he retires to the bathroom to indulge his hobby of painting.

On the night he is wined and dined by the bank, humbly appreciative of the gold watch presented in honour of his long service, he find himself going to the aid of a woman (Joan Bennett) being beaten in the street and takes her for coffee. Coffee becomes a drink, and somehow she gets the idea that he is a successful artist. We worldly viewers realise she is a hooker, but Edward G gets the idea that she is a struggling actress. So far, so normal.

But Eddie is smitten and soon he is setting her up in an apartment, using money stolen from his wife, unaware of the relationship between Joan and Dan Duryea, who whines and sneers in his usual manner. An extra benefit of the apartment is that he can paint there.

Joan and Dan try to sell some of Eddie’s work, and a critic of modernist views decides it is touched with genius, and painted in a strangely masculine way for a woman artist. For somehow he too is under a misapprehension.

The crisis is reached when the bank discovers his embezzlement and his wife’s husband returns from the dead. The unemployed Eddie is now free to fulfil his dream of marrying Joan, but she turns him down in a somewhat cruel manner and he kills her. As you do. It’s now the police’s turn to get the wrong end of the stick and Dan Duryea is executed for the crime.

The film ends with a guilt-stricken Edward G, down–and-out and compulsively confessing his crime to incredulous mockery. The film ends as he passes an art gallery where his portrait of Joan Bennett is displayed, now a valuable self-portrait by a brilliant artist savagely cut off before her promise was fulfilled.

Comment

If my review of this film’s plot seemed a little jaundiced, it’s because I just don't understand why so many others consider it a masterpiece of ‘noir’, when I find it slow, stagey and unbelievable.

When I first saw it I was surprised to find it was made in 1945 and not 10 years earlier. It could be my DVD transcription that accounts for the grainy look of the film, but not the static camera, cardboard sets and contrived story-line. Duryea is good at what he does; Bennett is good at looking the way she does; Robinson, brilliant as he is, cannot overcome the pitiful stupidity of his character. The fact that a film is based on a good idea does not make it a good film.

However, the last five minutes are undeniably powerful and some of the most despairing I've ever seen in a Hollywood movie.


Now, away from the screen, Edward G was a very civilised man, who spent his earnings on building up one of Hollywood’s finest art collections. The sort of man who would like cricket, I like to think. Unlike the tribal savages at the Cup Final yesterday, booing some of the great names of the game because they’d played for the wrong team. Had he been privileged to experience them, Eddie would have appreciated a flowing cover drive or a brilliant slip catch, no matter who performed the feat.

Which brings me on to the fourth day at Lord’s, when England made hard work of dismissing West Indies and had to indulge in a run chase to set up a winning position. Which they did, it has to be said, with Cook posting a place-retaining 60-odd, Shah effectively losing his place and Pieterson knocking off his hundred and getting out, as per usual.

As I’d expected, the Windies proved they’re no mugs, with some brilliant batting against indifferent bowling, Monty apart. Shot of the day has to be when Daren Powell strolled down the pitch to an appalling Harmison and casually swotted him to the boundary. ‘I’ve never seen that before,’ said one commentator. ‘What do you call a shot like that?’ ‘Contemptuous’ came the reply.

But England are 400 ahead and therefore, normally, should win. But normally, we have more than one bowler. And it looks like rain.

Birds, Biltong and Batsmen

I’m pleased to report that last year’s song thrush is back. At least he looks similar. I also saw a heron the other day, and a pied wagtail. (I was with someone who knows about these things).

* * *
Morning

553 for 5. That’s how it ended last night. Not bad at all.

A day of records – only the second time four England players have scored a century in one innings, and Prior the first England wicket-keeper to score one on debut.

Pity we couldn’t have had a bowl at them before stumps, but as someone said, get the runs now, while it’s easier than it will be on the last day. And it might be best to grind them into the dust until, say, lunch today and take away all hope.

I’ve read the West Indies’ attack described as being less than world standard. But they’re not Zimbabwe. This is not going to be a pushover.

I hear there’s a football match going on at the same time today.

Later

I said the Windies would give us a run for our money. Beautiful aggressive batting from Ramdin and Bravo, showing others how to deal with Panesar, who himself demonstrated the nerve, not to mention stamina, needed by a spin bowler. Great bat-bowl contest.

Prior showed that he’s a pretty competent keeper. A pity that he had had to show it by reducing the runs Steve Harmison would otherwise have given away in wides. And it's worrying about Hoggard. I hear he missed the birth of his son in order to play for England. That's the kind of man we need in the team.

It’s shaping up nicely, as they say in tabloid-land.

* * *

And now, with acknowledgements and apologies to Stanley Holloway, Marriot Edgar and the PC police, here’s a monologue based on an incident I’m told is true.

‘T’were a few year ago, one September,
In this tale that I’m going to relate,
When t’king of some African country
Came to London on visit o’ state.

He were due to 'ave dinner with H.M. the Queen
Which didn’t quite please the old dear.
‘I’ll bet the blighter eats peas off his knife
and doesn’t drink nowt but beer.’

The Prime Minister told her, all smarmy-like,
‘Don’t fret thi'sen, ma’am, said he.
‘For after he’d finished at spear-throwing school,
He studied at L.S.E.’

Besides, said PM, all ‘aughty and grand,
In ‘is white tie and tails and ‘is topper.
The ‘ole thing’s in aid of good will and peace.
And we're after ‘is diamonds and copper.

All right, said Queen, but gave him the look
That folk get when they’re sent to the Tower,
‘For England, our realm, we will do this deed,
But the man’s still an absolute shower.’

His Majesty brought dozen wives with ‘im,
Just enough, but not the ‘ole set.
They came in the baggage compartment
Of an 'Elephant Air' jumbo jet.

He were just a bit peeved by the Customs -
Kept waiting he were for a while -
As they checked out his sackfuls of ganja
And examined his pet crocodile.

They ‘ung onto his assegai, then let ‘im go,
To be greeted by Prince Phil and Queen.
The pageant and pomp and the circumstance
Were grandest old lad had yet seen.

Guardsmen marched by wearing busby ‘ats;
There were flags of bright red, white and blue;
There was biltong, and bush tea, and coconuts.
Aye, an’ old ale and sandwiches too.

The Queen gave king a couple of jars
Of honey from Prince of Wales’ hives
The queen got some cheese made from lioness milk
And Philip got one of the wives.

The Queen took king on to Buckingham House
In a carriage all way up the Mall.
Crowds, they were deep, and folk cheered like mad
They tret lad just like an old pal.

He waved to the crowds, all the way, did king,
With a big grin that showed he were pleased,
While Philip were whispering in new wife’s ear
And queen were nibbling on t’cheese

Four milky white horses, all thoroughbreds,
Were pulling the plush regal cart,
When a silly old mare at back let go
Wi’ a right royal, thunderous fart.

An un’oly ‘ush settled down on the crowd.
T’king were too non-plussed to speak,
And when t’orse repeated her lez-majesty
Prince Phil started swearing in Greek.

But Queen, dear old soul, is allus cool.
She ‘andles such gaffes wi’ great skill.
Australians, Frenchmen and Flatulence -
Such things are mere grist to ‘er mill.

So with lady-like handkerchief over her nose,
She said, ‘What a nasty mishap.
We are sorry, Your Majesty, that this transpired.
O do please forgive us, old chap.’

‘Indeed, lass,' said king, all gentleman-like,
'Forgive thee I will, but of course.
Though between me and thee, if I may speak so free
I thought at the time it were ’orse.’

Ist Test: Day 2

As I write this England are 435 for 5. They’ve had a fair bit of luck. Collingwood in particular has had at least 3 lives, but has sensibly taken advantage of it. Cook, unfortunately, proved me right soon after the start. Bell is sticking around. It’s about time he came of age. And Matthew Prior is showing why he’s there, and that the selectors know more than I do about these matters.

The West Indies appear to be very poor in the field, with lots of dropped catches and surprising captaincy decisions, such as the delay in taking the new ball.

I heard the last excerpt from John Major’s new book, More Than a Game which he’s been reading on Radio 4 this week. It will be repeated on the BBC Radio website for a week.

Major writes elegantly and intelligently, and, boy, does he love the game.

He spoke this morning of the first-class cricketers who died in the First World War, including Percy Jeeves whose name is reputed to have been borrowed by P G Wodehouse for Bertie Wooster’s valet.

25 overs left. All being well, a declaration soon and a couple of their wickets before dinner.

Cricket and Crows

I don’t mind being up at 5.30 in the morning, at least not at this time of year. It’s quiet and peaceful, bright and clear. Despite a slight ache at the back of my eyes, so am I.

Dozens of invisible birds are singing, although I think I’ve missed the dawn chorus by a couple of hours. I often wish I could identify them, but I think that’s a yet another skill I will have to forgo. I see that one of our local nature parks has a ‘dawn chorus walk’, which involves turning out at four in the morning to wander the woods round being told what you’re listening to. I wonder if you can combine it with the ‘bat walk’ at dusk and some sort of nocturnal creatures walk in between. You could call it ‘Bats, badgers and birdsong’.

* * *

England’s cricket team created what the press described as a sound platform yesterday and ‘are in a strong position, going into the second day.’ Cook – and I’m pleased to see him doing well, because he’s a class batsman and has had trouble establishing himself – is ‘well set’. Let’s see. He and Collingwood, ‘Mr Reliable’, have to start again this morning. Cook has just got his century and that often seems to have a negative psychological effect on a batsman, as if they’re thinking the job’s done and they can stop concentrating. I often think it would be a good idea to scrap all the records of century-makers and make 150 the score that was commemorated.

What’s happening to umpires? Another shambles over bad light yesterday. It seems that ever since Darrel Hare was hounded out last year they’ve totally lost their grip.

Just a mention of football. Lincoln City lost in the play-offs and it’s for the best. They are not a Division One team. And Lincoln won’t have to endure visitations by Leeds after all.

* * *

I received some feedback from the RSPB the other day about the Big Garden Birdwatch for which I spent an hour staring out of the window in January.

I was surprised at how few birds I actually saw, but apparently that was a common report. The experts attribute that to the mildness of the weather, which meant that birds were not so dependent on domestic gardens to find food. That’s looking on the bright side.

It still seems to be a fact that the most common birds, sparrows and starlings, are declining. Finches and tits are doing well, but for me the most worrying trend is the decline of the song thrush (or the mavis as it was once called). The last thrush I saw was some time last year. It was a friendly creature, not exactly tame but quite happy to look up from pecking at the ground only a couple of yards from me and exchange greetings as I walked by.

We have plenty of crows, who strut along the middle of the road, arrogant and scruffy. I was watching a couple of them stalking a cat the other day. I noticed a cat ambling across a field behind my flat and realised that two crows were following it, one to the left, one to the right. The cat was attempting an air of nonchalance, but its tail was wagging. Each time it slowed down the crows would hop forward to urge it on, occasionally flapping into the air. They must have pursued it for 50 yards before they decided that it had left their territory and learned its lesson.

* * *

Men can get into trouble these days when attempting to tell a woman how attractive she is. Might a modern phrase be more politically correct? How about ‘fit for purpose’.

Cricket: England v West Indies

Today the first test match against the West Indies begins.

It seems to me that the two sides are well-matched, which means, let's hope, a good close contest. The West Indies are not the fearsome force they once were, and I cling to the belief that England are not as bad as they appeared over the last six months. Frankly, in Australia and in the World Cup, they were abject. I believe they were victims of the over-pitched adulation they received after winning the Ashes. They became arrogant and complacent and, when that bubble was pricked, lapsed into indiscipline and defeatism.

Have they learned their lesson? Is Strauss back to form? Will his captaincy be as good as it’s famed to be? Has Harmison got himself under control at last? Is Pieterson going to play for the team, not just himself? Who’s Prior, and what happened to Chris Reade? We shall see.

It’s a pity Brian Lara couldn’t visit us one last time. I’m going to miss him. A beautiful player and a true cricket gentleman. Perhaps the last professional batsman to ‘walk’.

Hank Williams

I’VE been meaning to write about Hank Williams for quite a while. I even had a title – I Can’t Help It – a reference to one of his best songs and one of my favourites. I see now that the BBC has had the same idea and are calling their new radio series on him, beginning later this week, In Love With Hank.

Some of my friends like Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly. Others are fans of Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald. Then there’s Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and the like. I even know someone who shares my affection for Al Jolson. But they look on me with pity, even contempt, when I declare my admiration for Hank Williams

They all love Elvis Presley and I sometimes say, with Boxcar Willie, ‘I know why you cried, the day Elvis died. When Hank passed away, I cried all that day.’ I didn’t, of course, because I was only two. But I would have done, had I been there in Alabama to watch the funeral cortege pass by.

I saw a documentary once about him, in which some old-timer from Alabama was reminiscing, and said of Hank’s mother, ‘She thought a heap o’ Hank.’ So do I.

SO WHY? Hank’s music was hardly sophisticated. I doubt he ever struck a minor chord or picked a flattened note. His lyrics are so simple they could be called trite and his rhymes are obvious – or should I say they don’t draw attention to themselves. He sticks rigidly to 4/4 time and a two or three verse plus bridge formula, with an instrumental break consisting of fiddle and guitar. He sings of love and loss, of hope and heartache, of faith and failure. And that’s just what he recorded as Hank Williams. A lot of his material was so depressing it had to be released under the name ‘Luke the Drifter’.

All true, but look at the song I mentioned earlier, I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love with You). Structurally it’s a perfect popular song, its bridge has a sense of inevitability and doubles as a quite emotional climax – ‘Heaven only knows how much I miss you. I can’t help it if I’m still in love with you.’

The words and rhymes, of course, are simple. The song is accessible, the details of lost love concrete and familiar. The tune is distinctive and memorable and lends itself to all manner of styles. Many of Hank’s songs are in fact part of the canon of popular music, making him one of the most covered artists of all, from Ray Charles to Tony Bennett.

Most of all, the song conveys emotion, an emotion most of us can share. This is the essence of Hank Williams. He sings non-macho songs for macho men, who prefer to have someone else do their crying for them, someone to display the self-pity their pride forbids them to show.

Hank’s voice fits the mood of the songs exactly. The country-boy accent, the nasal whininess, the emotional breaks. It fits so well with the ever-present sob and wail of the scraping fiddle, itself reminiscent of the lonesome train whistle he so often sings of, a symbol of freedom and loss. Kris Kristofferson summed it up in Me and Bobby McGee - 'Nothing ain't worth nothing, but it's free.'

I DON’T KNOW about you but if I’m feeling down, I might achieve some comfort through the distancing and sublimating effect of Shakespeare’s words, ‘When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state,’ but there are times when only ‘Everything’s agin me and it’s got me down’ will do. And when comfort seems an insult to my misery, I want to hear, ‘The moon just went behind a cloud to hide its face and cry.’ Did you ever see a robin weep? You don’t need to, do you?

It’s not all doom and gloom. There’s humour in I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive and My Bucket’s Got a Hole In It. And Hey, Good Lookin’ and Settin’ the Woods on Fire are full of bounce and happiness. Howlin' at the Moon is an exuberant hymn to the silliness that is being in love. It's like being drunk. We know it's daft and won't do us any good, but who cares? The hangover's a small price to pay.

HANK HIMSELF was weaned on the semi-commercial country music of the thirties and forties, a mix of gospel (I Saw the Light), honky-tonk and blues (My Bucket’s Got a Hole In It). But his own influence on others has been phenomenal, often expressed in songs about him. Johnny Cash sang of The Day Hank Williams Came to Town. Rock ‘n’ Roll owes him a debt – what is Rock Around the Clock if not a rip-off of Move It On Over? And, as I said before, he could ‘cross over’. Hank may have been in two minds about Tony Bennett’s insipid version of Cold, Cold Heart – ‘What the **** have you done with my song? – but no doubt the royalty cheques eased his concern.

This crossing-over, making raw country music acceptable to pop lovers, nearly emasculated the genre and led to an inevitable reaction. Waylon Jennings sang Hank Never Done it Thissaway and with his fellow ‘Outlaws’ turned his back on Nashville. His son Shooter carries on the tradition of rough, straight-talking music, as does Hank’s grandson, Hank III.

Well, sometimes a simple ‘I love you’ is more effective than flowers, chocolates and a especially composed sonnet. Sometimes it is better that a song speaks directly to you, without the need for a musicological reference book. Sometimes we would rather hear our petty tragedies, our sins and failures addressed directly and not veiled in irony, humour or artificiality.

I can only sum up in the words of Kris Kristofferson. ‘If you don’t like Hank Williams, honey, you can kiss my ass.’

* * *

More blogs to come, if the good Lord’s a-willin, and the creeks don’t rise.

Real Alligator Pie

I did a little research on alligator meat the other day, for reasons which no doubt lie too deep for words within my psyche. It began, I suppose, when I discovered that ‘Pigman's' or 'Swineherd’s pie’, which I flattered myself I had invented, was in fact a well-established dish.

I know little about so-called exotic meats. I’ve never had ostrich or kangaroo, although I did once chew on a piece of biltong. I’m ashamed to say I’ve only eaten venison once and rabbit hardly ever. I may have eaten horse and dog in certain dodgy establishments but I was not aware of it. Probably my gastronomic summit is stuffed chine, a Lincolnshire delicacy unappreciated by the rest of the world.

What about Alligator Pie, I thought, and checked it on the net. And there it was.

It seems to be a strange American pudding with unbaked pie crust, mixed with cream cheese and sour cream. Pecan nuts can be used to give the pie a vague resemblance to an alligator’s skin...

It sounds awful and I doubt it looks anything like an alligator.

On looking further I found a poem called Alligator Pie by Dennis Lee, a Canadian poet. It’s a jolly little rhyme, the title poem of a book of children’s verse, and reminiscent of Blue Suede Shoes.

It’s also the title of a long-forgotten TV movie, also from Canada, that even IMDb knows little about.

So how would you go about making a real Alligator Pie, a dish that would belong to the family that includes Shepherd’s, Cottage, Swineherd’s and Fish?

First, as they say, catch your alligator. I would recommend delegating that task.

In terms of cholesterol and fat content, alligator is a healthier option than chicken, or so I read.

The best cut is considered to be from the tail, which has the texture of veal and the taste of chicken, pork, rabbit, fish or frog’s legs. In other words, it tastes like alligator. Apparently you can find meat in the feet as well, rather like pig’s trotters, I guess.

The mid-section meat is darker and tougher and is usually diced for stews. It can also be minced for sausages, and therefore, I propose, for Real Alligator Pie (UK version).

Serves 6

Cooking time: 1.5 -2 hrs

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs alligator meat, coarsely minced
3 onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
3 sticks celery, chunks
4 oz chillies, diced
1 tin tomatoes
7 fl oz chicken stock – or soup. (Make it partly with milk)
I pkt sage and onion
Herbs, etc to taste.
2 lbs mashed potato, maybe with mashed broccoli (green, you see).

Method:

Brown meat in oil; soften onions, etc; add liquid, bring to boil and simmer until meat is cooked. Thicken if necessary.

Turn in 2 inch-deep dish and spread potato over the meat. Decorate with alligator teeth if available.

Eat with chicken gravy.

This recipe can be adapted for snake meat.

Now all I need is a volunteer.

Thomas Hardy

Well, I've learned how to get more hits on this blog. Just mention Ewa Sonnet. Haha, got you again.

Because I want to talk about books.

Yesterday I began reading Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd. I read the first chapter on the bus and wondered why I had enjoyed it so much, and why it wasn't just pleasure the book was giving me.

It was also relief. And what relief to begin an old-fashioned, well-written novel. The long, rolling sentences, interwoven with spare, fresh dialogue. Lots of interesting characters, just the right side of exaggeration, described with understanding and a touch of humour.

For example, I love this little description of Bathsheba’s companion, Liddy:

‘Liddy, like a little brook, though shallow, was always rippling; her presence had not so much weight as to tax thought, and yet enough to exercise it.’


Nineteenth century novelists weren’t afraid of complicated stories, coincidence, long words, classical allusions, elegant style, narative omniscience and authorial comment.

I love it.

What a contrast with what I’ve been reading. OK, Graham Greene’s Monsignor Quixote was well-written, entertaining and thoughtful, but ultimately a dramatised debate about different kinds of faith, religious and political. Therefore, rather irrelevant and slight.

Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale was laboured and derivative. There was the one whose title I’ve forgotten about the old girl who’s released from a mental home after 60 years into the care of a niece and the relationship which develops. I enjoyed it at the time but in retrospect it was just a two-hander, rather like a TV play in comparison with a movie. And after a while, a novel written in the present tense becomes a bit wearing.

So does the first person. I’ve said before that authors like Chandler and Wodehouse pulled off the first person novel expertly. Nick Hornby isn’t bad, but the characters he creates to tell the story are ultimately a bit boring. And so often the technique seems merely an excuse for poor writing and lack of intelligence. Why doesn’t the author adopt a persona who knows how to string a sentence together and has a broader vocabulary than four-letter words?

Ted Lewis (Jack’s Return Home) for example; Trainspotting; The Pornographer Diaries. I call it ‘scrotelit’.

In the same vein is The Damned United, by David Peace. It’s the story of Brian Clough’s brief and disastrous stint as manager of Leeds United, a club he had always hated. Inasmuch as it tries to get into his mind as he faces each day there and contrasts it with the joy he had previously found as manager of Derby, it is fascinating.

But. But it is written in a pseudo-poetical style, the main technique being repetition. Repetition. Repetition. After a while, it gets boring, boring. Boring. And so, so, so irritating. It really got on my nerves. Got on my nerves.

So, back to Thomas Hardy, where ‘The scarlet and the orange light outside the malthouse did not penetrate to its interior, which was, as usual, lighted by a rival glow of similar hue, radiating from the hearth.’

Google Alert: Sonnet

A few month’s ago, when I was bitten by the sonnet-writing bug – well, it was more of a vaccination as it turns out – I was amazed to find just how much sonnet-writing is going on out there.

Stephen Fry who wrote the ‘manual of prosody’, The Ode Less Travelled, need not worry about the survival of formal poetry. Free verse may be the stuff of modern published poetry, but strict metre and rhyme have not lost their attraction.

And it’s the sonnet that rules. There’s something about this little 14-line piece of verse that seduces and obsesses.

It’s length gives the poet room to breathe, but not so much that he can avoid concision. The volta around line 8 adds a little drama and the final couplet (in the Shakespearean version), when done well, provides a rather satisfying denouement.

And Shakespeare wrote some of the world’s best-loved poetry in the world, using the sonnet form. That alone makes it the ambition of every versifier.

In my enthusiasm I set up a Google alert using the word sonnet and not a day goes by without my being directed to half a dozen websites and blogs.

Some of these hits are unexpected. For example, I’ve discovered that actor Forest Whittaker has a daughter called Sonnet; that there’s some piece of hardware/software which goes by the name of Sonnet; and that there is an extremely well-endowed Polish topless model called Ewa Sonnet. (You can find your own link to her, but she’s definitely worth a pentameter or two).

Here are a few that I happened on today.

Digilitera, which describes itself as being concerned with 'algorithm-based literature and interesting technology', all rather beyond me.

Independent Scholar, who is a published poet and blogs about the daily routine of writing and worries about whether he can truly call himself a writer.

Sonnet Boy I've mentioned before and here he reflects on the project he set himself to write a sonnet every day for a year. His self-discipline amazes me. In this link he talks about the trials and joys of the last year's daily toil.

Far more courageous is this blog, Talk to the Hump, described as 'the ravings of a gay man living with AIDS and lypodystrophy.' In the sonnet written here, he ponders the time he may have contracted HIV. Like all good poetry it is better read than discussed.

The Lincoln Ghost Walk

The trouble with being a sceptic is that there are times when you have doubts about your doubts.

So it was last evening when I joined a group of tourists and locals for ‘The Lincoln Ghost Walk’. Our guide was a tall lady with long red hair, a flowing black cloak and a flair for the dramatic. At first I thought the goose pimples on my arms were a result of her narration. Or was it the sudden chill in the evening air? Or had our little group been joined by an unseen companion?

There are so many ghosts living in the old part of Lincoln that they form a significant minority community. Perhaps they should apply to the council for a grant. Is exorcism an infringement of their rights, I wonder? Still, they seem happy enough, spending most of their time in pubs, goosing barmaids and frightening old ladies.

Our first ghost was a galloping horseman who arrives in the early morning to bang on the Castle gates demanding entry. He is bearing a royal pardon for a condemned man, too late alas, for he is already hanged.

Not far away is Brown’s Pie Shop, home to a spirit known as Humphrey, who only refrains form mischief if the staff greet him by name each morning.

Roman chariots rattle along the Bail and legionaries march knee-deep up Greestone Mount, trying to avoid the bouncing head of Bishop Hugh as it rolls down towards an archway where a priest once hanged himself, forever cursing cameras and mobile phones used there by the unwary.

Beware the White Hart’s Orangery bar, where a horribly disfigured highwayman lurks, baring one eye only to terrified customers. And the ghost of the lady in Cobb Tower, hanged there for murdering her own children and known still to attack the infants of tourists and shout down to passing shoppers.

Come midnight, the ghosts of the plague dead, buried en masse without benefit of clergy, rise from their graves and attend the cathedral seeking absolution. As they worship their singing can be heard, a thing of beauty, passers-by agree.

The Strugglers Arms, so-called because it stands opposite the site of an old gallows, was once home to a stuffed dog, a lurcher. After the execution of his master, a poacher, the dog pined away and was eventually stuffed and kept in the pub. As long as he was there, there was an area of the pub, where there was a strange coldness and where even the most fortified customers were unwilling to sit. Economics demanded that the dog be moved and now he is again near his master, within the walls of the Castle. He seems at last to be content.

I know a little more about that dog. After the dog was stuffed, the landlord thought it would be a good idea to put it in a glass case to display it better and also to protect it from the curious. Unfortunately, the case he bought wasn't quite big enough and in order to fit the dog in he cut off its tail.

However, that very night, about three o'clock in the morning he was awakened by a scratching noise at his door, which persisted for half an hour. He rose to investigate and when he opened the door he saw a ghostly apparition. It was the dog.

His blood ran cold, because it stared at him with fangs bared and a look of diabolical hatred in its eyes.

The dog turned and started down the stairs. Even this ghost had no tail. The landlord felt himself drawn after it. They reached the bar and the dog looked up at its stiff body in the case. It loosed a fearful, hellish howl, and the landlord knew that the phantom hound was demanding that he replace the missing part.

The landlord knew what he must do. Trembling, he summoned up the courage to look the beast in the eye and croak, 'I'm sorry. I'm not allowed by law to retail spirits after hours.'

As they say, ‘Ooh, it makes you think, doesn’t it?'

Get out and vote

I believe I am right in saying that the biggest turn-out of voters in a British general election, in percentage terms, occurred in 1950. Nearly 23 million cast their votes that year to give the Labour government another few months in office. But the following year almost as many people voted again and the Tories were back in. In fact Labour received just under 14 million votes in 1951, more than the Conservatives and their allies, but that’s another story.

Turn-out fluctuated around 75% for the next 50 years, and then plummeted to 59.4% in 2001. Commentators have agonised over the reasons for this sudden apathy. Is it because the old, clear-cut political divisions have gone, now that we’re all ‘conservative’, now that we are all fat and well-off, our passions diluted by TV reality shows and computer games?

Or have we become so cynical and sunk in despair that we see no point in registering our opinion?

Maybe, maybe not. Whatever the reason, the government thought voter apathy was a problem and with its usual short-termism saw the way to fix it.

Postal voting. If people can’t be bothered to get off their fat arses and wobble down to the polling station once every few years, let’s make easier for them. Send out thousands of ballot papers and anyone who finds them lying around can fill them in. Computer voting. Why not? No matter that the government cannot look at a computer system without its crashing or leaking private information.

They’ve even floated the idea of lowering the voting age to 16. God help us. I can see the Monster Raving Loony Party finally winning a seat. In any case, isn’t it true that the younger you are, the less likely you are to vote?

Postal voting has been a disaster. Following the last local elections in Birmingham, five elected councillors had to resign when ‘irregularities’ were exposed. And now we hear that a review of the electoral roll there has seen a 20,000 drop in the electorate.

No wonder. You just ring up and ask for as many ballots as you like. There are few checks. In blocks of flats, hundreds of voting forms arrive to be picked up by whoever finds them first. In certain families with, let’s say, a patriarchal culture people’s votes can be checked by whoever’s in charge. Helpful party workers will show residents of old folk’s homes how to vote and who to vote for.

No. If people don’t want to vote, fine. I don’t want my representatives chosen by people who don’t know the name of their own MP, or by people who don’t even exist. I’d like to see it more difficult, not easier. We should have to register personally with the same checks as are used to open a bank account and produce ID when we go the polling station. Postal votes should be for those who genuinely need them, not the idle and indifferent.

A scene from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance comes to mind.

John Qualen often played a comic Swede John Ford, ‘by Golly.’ In this film he plays an immigrant who is about to attend an election meeting. He puts on his best suit and hat, is seen off by his proud wife and daughter, arrives at the meeting-hall and flourishes his papers. ‘American citizen,’ he declares and goes in to vote.

That’s the spirit of democracy.