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 |   A tentative blog to test the temperature. |
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Ten years ago I was writing several blogs on various subjects - F1 motor racing, Music, Classic Cars, Great Romances and, most crushingly, a personal journal that included my thoughts on America, memories of England and Africa, opinion, humour, writing and anything else that occurred. It all became too much (I was attempting to update the journal every day) and I collapsed, exhausted and thoroughly disillusioned in the end. So this blog is indeed a Toe in the Water, a place to document my thoughts in and on WdC but with a determination not to get sucked into the blog whirlpool ever again. Here's hoping.     |
| High Finance! The problem with a balanced budget is that you have to stop buying the things you can't afford. |
| A Laundry Basket Post In our bathroom there is a plastic laundry basket. It is pretty much what you would expect from such a thing - tall, plastic and obviously meant to contain clothes. On its side there is a label and this announces it to be an "attractive contemporary design". Now, I am not about to argue with the first assertion - obviously it has proved attractive enough to persuade its purchaser. And we can stretch a point with the contemporary claim since plastic laundry baskets have only been around for fifty years or so. But what worries me in all this is the apparent need to announce these qualities to us. If the thing is so darned attractive, wouldn't we notice without the sly nudge from a label on the side? And what virtue is there in being contemporary anyway? We would be just as impressed by a claim to traditional or retro styling, I'm sure. It is rather like our instant suspicion of anyone who insists that we should "trust them". I know, I know - I have to stop reading labels… Word count: 178 |
| The Good Old Days How long is it since we heard a real old time protest song? Here's one to celebrate its heyday: |
| Ah Poetry Indeed As it happens, I did read Lilli’s Newsletter entitled Ah, Poetry (https://www.writing.com/main/newsletters/action/archives/id/11924) and I also read the poem entitled Kindness (https://www.writing.com/main/redirect?htime=1682608845&hkey=f5e75d8043e654afb1a8...) that she directed the reader to. Strangely, I had a similar experience to this lady, Naomi Shihab Nye, when she had the poem dictated to her by a voice in the air. Mine did not come to me from quite the same source, however, since it was not dictated but seemed to arrive in my brain in an instant, complete and requiring no effort from me apart from writing it down quickly before it was lost. Even that was entirely unnecessary since I have never forgotten it. At the time, the only way I could describe that moment of its transition to me was that the spirit of William Blake had passed it to me in a moment of madness (his, not mine). Blake has been dead since 1827 so the only excuse for this impression must be that it was the first, and destined to be the last for a long time, rhyming poem that I had written. It is totally unlike my style then or ever. Here it is in its brevity and directness: Plant Oh, deep in thy vegetable heart of matter What humus thoughts grow thou Tomorrow you feed on their rotting flesh Though they may pluck thee now These days I would not have capitalised each line and nor would I have left it unpunctuated. But that is how it came to me so that is how I leave it. Word count: 288 |
| Lollipop Man Everyone takes him for a sucker but he can really stick it to them. |
| Kids I have come to the conclusion that I’m either a brilliant father or so bad that God keeps trying to train me to be better. When the first kid came along, I thought, “Okay, that’s twenty years you’ve signed on for - let’s see if you survive this.” It turned out to be easy (he was a very good kid) and so it wasn’t too horrible a shock to find out, towards the end of the twenty years, that there were two late arrivals on the way. They turned out to be not too bad as well and I was just beginning to enjoy my approaching freedom after another (nearly) twenty years, when God threw an unexpected job at me. This consisted of attempting to educate a bunch of teenagers who had been excluded from school. It was not lost on me that this was a fairly cruel trick to play on me in my fast-approaching old age, but I knuckled down and found that the kids really did seem to gain something from it. I may have been doing something right, most likely as a pure accident. Then came America and the love of my life. I suppose I should have been unsurprised that she came with a couple of kids dubbed, in her inimitable way, the Girl and the Boy. Well, I kept my nose to the grindstone and we all seemed to survive somehow. They came of age and began to leave into adulthood. At the last moment, the Boy brought a friend into our lives. Over time he became part of the family and, today, he is back home with us, on a short break from being a Marine and amazing us with his exploits. I’ve been old for so long now that I have earned the title of Ancient. You might think that I also deserve a rest from kids by this time. Fat chance. The Girl recently provided us with a grandchild… Word count: 327 |
| A Blast from the Past I came across this nugget of apparent wisdom while reading my old blog: if you know everything about one thing, write about it. If you know a little about everything, write about yourself. It might actually be good advice... |
| Betsy Here’s a story that was never written and probably never will be. If nothing else, it demonstrates that the world is full of stories, so there’s no excuse for having nothing to write! YouTube loves to throw unexpected things at me, just to see if I’m still awake, and yesterday it sent me a mystery. This came in the form of a video of a young lady named Betsy Legg. She was having a go at one of Bob Dylan’s old songs, Tomorrow is a Long Time. Obviously, YouTube knows that I’m a sucker for anything by Mister Zimmerman and, sure enough, I was unable to resist taking a listen. Betsy’s voice turned out to be rivetting. Almost a dead ringer for Joan Baez, yet somehow having an extra appeal, perhaps because I know nothing of the singer. I resolved to find out more. It turns out that YouTube has a number of her songs, all taken from an album she made in 1971. The songs are covers of well known folk songs of the period and Betsy does a fine job of them all. Now I’m fairly used to discovering artists that I’ve never heard of before but finding that they were famous in their day. There were decades when I just wasn’t listening, I know. But Betsy quickly became a mystery of impenetrable lack of information. I found myself following a well worn trail of others who had looked for information on young Betsy. There was nothing. Google tried all sorts of people with similar names but had to throw up its hands in despair in the end. When Google gives up, you can be sure that there’s nothing out there. I did find a long thread of questions regarding Betsy but no one seemed to know anything definite. One claimed that the album had been a private pressing in Atlanta, Georgia, with very few copies produced. Somehow, one of these had found its way on to YouTube. Someone else maintained that she was now Betsy Simon and lived in Tennessee. But there was nothing definite. The story turns out to be just a series of unanswered questions. Who is or was this young lady with the voice of an angel and why had she never been noticed and broadcast to a world hungry for talent? Was this reluctance toward fame a matter of Betsy’s own choice or was it another of those sad tales of close, but no cigar? If it’s the former, there is some irony in the fact that her album is now available to everyone, courtesy of today’s technology. It’s frustrating to be left wondering about Betsy’s story. But, at the same time, there is also something fascinating in being able to write our own story around these few songs so exquisitely sung. In our minds, she can remain as the voice that was just too good for this world. Betsy’s version of that first song I listened to is embedded below. If you want any more, you’re going to have to search YouTube for yourself! Word count: 512 |
| The Most Famous Person You Never Heard Of That’s what my wife calls him and it was true - once. Now, of course, I’m one of his biggest fans. And YouTube reminded me this morning that the great man died only a few days ago (March 03). A sad day for all who ever heard David Lindley play. Plenty of them have never heard of him even now. He was not one for having his name in lights or making a big fuss about his talents. Yet he played with most of the big names in the music business over the last forty years, so much in demand was his virtuoso slide guitar playing. Much of the time he was playing other instruments, usually of the stringed kind, for he could play anything. He is often referred to as a multi-instrumentalist or even a maxi-instrumentalist. David had his own band (El Rayo-X) but he was far more often away playing for someone else. He had a special bond with Jackson Browne whose live performances without him are rare indeed. The world is a poorer place without him. I had to pick a video as my thank you for the entertainment he provided over the years and that was impossible. There are just so many of them. In the end, I sorta picked this one with a pin but it’s as good as they all are: Word count: 226 |
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