The Spoken Word

Last week I went to hear the poet Ian McMillan at Nottingham Public Library.

Ian is well known for being on radio, introducing the BBC's weekly poetry programme, The Verb, and for being the resident poet for Barnsley football club. He gave some very amusing readings from his autobiography in verse, Talking Myself Home. His strong Yorkshire accent brought memories of when we lived in Leeds in the early 1970s. He's very broadminded though, and said he even enjoys performing in Lancashire. One of his comments was that poetry is like music, it stirs something very deep inside people.

Interestingly, Ian recites his poetry on tour with a music group and there are some samples of their work on this website: http://www.theianmcmillanorchestra.com/. I was delighted to discover that they use music composed by Aidan O'Rourke of the folk group Lau, who I also saw in Nottingham and the subject of an earlier blog. That's a really satisfying connection.

Part of the enjoyment of listening to Ian is his good rapport and repartee with his audience. He said at one point that he had to watch the clock as his stories and asides were taking over from the poems and he asked one elderly lady on the front row what the time was. "Nearly" she said. "That's a good time, far better than just too late", he said, quick as a flash.

More information about Ian and some of his poems are at http://www.uktouring.org.uk/ian-mcmillan/index.html

Visiting Birmingham

At a public inquiry into the planning strategy for the East Midlands a few years ago someone said with horror that Nottingham could get like Birmingham in a few years. She meant big and sprawling but it was said as a put down for Birmingham, which is a pity. J and I have been visiting Birmingham regularly since I retired, primarily to go to the afternoon symphony concerts in the best concert hall in the country, but there is a richness about the heritage of Birmingham that is very attractive.
There is a new library being built that will be a big draw in a couple of years. But go to the empty site now, in Centenary Square, and you can see the archaeology from a viewing platform. Two old canal basins and remains of a Victorian brassworks that provided the middle classes with brass bedsteads for a couple of generations! On a previous trip we went to the Jewellery Quarter museum and saw a workshop that was unchanged from when it was in full flow, churning out gold earrings and brooches. There were people giving the tour who had worked there until the 1980s but the technology was a century old.
Another huge attraction is the artistic tradition, especially in Edward Burne-Jones, a local lad, and the work of other mid Victorian "Pre-Raphaelites" you can find in Birmingham. We saw the stained glass windows in the cathedral last week that Burne-Jones designed and William Morris made using magnificent shades of red and other bright colours. In the Museum and Art Gallery we disovered the original "Farewell to England", a painting of migrants to Australia by Ford Maddox Brown : http://www.bmagic.org.uk/objects/1891P24 . I love the fact that the Museum lets you see its collection online. It also has a free listening guide to all the paintings in the circular entrance gallery. And its Edwardian Tea Room, aspidistras and all, is just great value.
Other discoveries to follow, as and when we make them...

Folk Music

Bloggers are like boy racers, said J. Exhibitionists, hiding their inadequacy. Oh! Isn't the survey sample somewhat small yet? Let's wait and see. You may be right.

I think I may have been a bit limiting in referring to "projects" in my last posting. It must be legitimate to set out your take on what interests you. That, as well as what you do, constitutes who you are. Books, for example. You are what you read. I'm reading alot since I retired and I intend to refer to books I've read from time to time. And music, now that's important.

I've been going to the occasional live folk concert for a few years but it's something I'm going to do more of now the shackles of employment have fallen from my limbs. Radio provides a good pointer to what is happening in the folk world and I've been to see 2 recent winners of the bbc radio 2 folk awards who have ventured into Nottingham. The most recent was Lau, a fiery and virtuoso English/Scottish trio who really livened up the Nottingham Playhouse on 9 October. Hear some of their recent "Arc Light" album tracks on this link http://www.myspace.com/laumusic. Did you know "horizontigo" is what scottish people from the "topographically pretentious" Highlands suffer from when they visit the Fens? Anyway, that's how the accordionist Martin Green explained the meaning of the track at the Playhouse.

I also get alot from the excellent Radio Derby "Folkwaves" programme on Monday evenings. Folk music is from the people, it is irreverent, polemical and comes with a tune, often very old but frequently re-invented. More about that, about history and about Nottingham Playhouse in future posts.

My first ever blog.
"They are all pretentious nonsense" said J. Possibly. Opinionated and self-important too. But not necessarily, I hope.
For someone who can't even keep his facebook page up to date it could all be rather ambitious, not to say presumptious. But it could be a chance to set down some things that are important to me or even inconsequential but may be shareable with selected family and friends. As long as I don't ramble on...
Retirement gives you a bit of space and I think it is important to capture some of what you are trying to do with your new-found leisure. Projects and that sort of thing. Might be of interest...