Parsley Sound, Benny Rothman, razor clams

and the Spaniard that Blighted my Life

Hello!

Spring is on the way. Sometimes it really doesn’t feel like it, but it’s always coming, like the bus. I am ordering seeds from the seed catalogue and preparing the allotment for a new year of growing. Some tulips I planted have come up, and are brightening gloomier days, reminding me to keep looking forward, which can be very hard to do sometimes. But these yellow flowers tell me that the winter is waning and that the sun has been shining, even if I haven’t much noticed it.

Lots of today’s picks are things that I have been thinking about as a result of visits to museums, galleries, or venues. However, all of them can be enjoyed at home. I think this is important in the format of this newsletter as I don’t know who is reading it; where you are, or what your physical and financial abilities are to access in-real-life things at the moment. I read a wonderful column about this idea of accessing culture at home by Gabrielle de la Puente, one of the art critics who runs the White Pube. She writes beautifully on the experience of her ability changing, the art of knitting, and freeing herself from the drive to constantly work. It’s well worth your time, and will almost certainly make you want to take up knitting if you don’t already.

Anyway. Reading it reminded me of the beauty of reading, writing, creating and learning at home, and also reminded me how long it had been since I’d written one of these, so - if you are after something to read:

I’m finally reading My Garden by Jamaica Kincaid after being implored to by a friend, and it’s brilliant. I’d read her short story, Girl, before (which I think is still available online) but this is the first Kincaid book I’ve read. I’m looking forward to reading her novels in the future, which I always prefer to non fiction. Sometimes this makes me feel a bit stupid, or lazy, but I think that’s an internal voice I should ignore, and just keep reading what I actually want to read. If you like non fiction though, I heard Aniefiok Ekpoudom’s new book ‘Where We Come From: Rap, Home & Hope in Modern Britain’ is amazing, but I wouldn’t know, having never received my copy. This serves me right because I ordered it from the website I am not meant to use. I should have ordered it where I usually do, bookshop.org. This is a good website if you aren’t familiar: it connects to your local independent bookseller, so if you can’t go out about buy it in real life, or are lazy and want to buy it online, you can do so and still support independent sellers. But I have requested a refund from ****** and am going to go out and buy it today. There’s a brilliant extract of it online here, and I’m looking forward to reading the full book. A last bit of non fiction: a book called ‘The Book of Trespass’ by Nick Hayes, recommended to me by a listener, after I said how much I enjoyed seeing the photos of the tiny but fearsome activist Benny Rothman and the Kinder Scout Trespass at an exhibition recently.

The Kinder Scout Trespass is extremely cool. It was a mass coordinated trespass in 1932 on what was then private land, to protest against the fencing off of said land, an area called Kinder Scout in the Peak District. Kinder Scout has recently been sold off to rich landowners, and taken away from the people. Whereas before right to roam included walking but also foraging, land was now fenced off so people couldn’t even access it. Hundreds (or thousands depending on your sources) of walkers, coordinated by the Jewish anti-fascist activist Benny Rothman, engaged in a mass civil disobedience that eventually ended up with the creation of National Park legislation, which is the least we can ask for when you consider that all of England used to be for everybody. When I spoke about it on the show, listeners told me that a commemorative walk happens every year at Kinder Scout on the date of the initial trespass, which I would love to go to one year.

Some shorter things I read and enjoyed: this profile by Anna Cafolla of rowdy, controversial group Kneecap (I’d never heard of them! but now I am itching to see the film about them, or see them live) / this advice column by Lilian Fishman / this extract from Lauren Oyler’s new book of essays on the occasional terror and tyranny of Goodreads / beautiful self build house / this Quietus piece on Television Personalities frontman Dan Treacy / this piece on the reality behind the developer co-opted graffiti on Sheffield’s Park Hill bridge, which I read after going to see Standing at the Sky’s Edge, which is about the building. I liked the musical, but I found the ultimate perspective it gave on gentrification depressing, and disagreed with it quite vehemently, and this piece cemented my view / this incredible journalism by Patrick Radden Keefe in The New Yorker, about contemporary London, and youth, and danger, and corruption. I recognised so much in it, and was aghast and amazed at the story and the reporting respectively.

I also read about the relatively low environmental impact of potatoes. This made me think of when I first started this newsletter, about a year ago now, and I included a guide on how to grow potatoes at home. It is easy and satisfying to grow a potato plant at home in a pot, and if you want to, the instructions are here (at the end). I’m bringing it up now because if you would like to give this a go, and are in Europe, now is the time to start chitting your potato. This could be you!! Albeit in a few months.

Unfortunately this time I have nothing exciting for you to watch on television. I’m in a drought myself, waiting for a brilliant new show to fall into my lap. Until then I’m watching old series of Survivor, rewatching Pen15 and going to the cinema. I went to some film screenings at the Barbican, one of them called Trading Places, which showed three short films. All three spoke to the story all Londoners know well: the rapid changing of areas under guises of regeneration, and coming with that the dissolution of community and displacement of people. The first one was a brilliant programme made by a woman called Mary Dickinson, in 1985 for the BBC series Arena. Like so much BBC output of the time, it’s impossible to see this episode being commissioned now, both stylistically and in its content. It’s a beautiful portrait of the characters and businesses of Old Kent Road, the historic road to Kent from London; probably one of the most interesting roads in London, historically and today. It’s on YouTube, though not in the best quality, but still worth your time if you - like me - love this stretch of road. The film reminded me of an experience just off this road, on the way home from a party. I was walking past a pub that had music coming from it. It had blacked out windows and, had I not been a few drinks deep, I don’t think I would have gone in. But I was curious and half cut and opened the door. There were about 40 people in the pub, and everyone was grey haired and dressed sharply, and all seemed to know each other. I went to the bar and got a half pint and sat and watched what everyone else was: a four piece band on the stage. They were singing music hall classics, which are largely comedy songs from the turn of the 20th century, and everyone knew all the words. One guy got up and did a rousing rendition of The Spaniard that Blighted my Life, a slightly xenophobic song with a sing along chorus of murderous violence. So that tradition lives on. Anyway - other old episodes of Arena are on the internet, if you’re interested, like this one about the Chelsea Hotel on iPlayer and this one on Youtube about Elvis and his food.

I also enjoyed this clip of amazing Philip Guston talking about the death of finishing a painting / this video about harvesting razor clams / Outkast documentary.

If you’re looking for something to listen to, I really liked the new Jessica Pratt release. I find her music so calming and beautiful, and she has such a distinctive voice that her music feels fresh and unique, though it draws on obvious references. I find it hard to articulate what I like about music, but one thing I find easy to identify that I do not like is new music that is trying to sound old. I would rather listen to old music in that instance. Jessica Pratt’s music doesn’t feel like a pastiche, or an impression of something from the 60s, it feels like its own thing, which is hard to do when you make this kind of music. The album is not out yet but the first single from it is here.

Or maybe you want some excellent soft-hardcore via a new compilation out on Blank Mind - cannot wait to listen to it in full - excellent press release by Fergus Clark / or a timeless classic from Khan Jamal / or the Sophie B Hawkins loop at 15:30 on this tape / or new music by Nourished by Time, the lovely Marcus who joined me on the breakfast show, where he played more unreleased new music as well as some of his favourites: you can listen back to that here / vintage Warp Records - perfect nostalgic indie via Parsley Sound / this lovely release by a new Japanese band on stellar Washington DC label PPU / wicked Welsh new wave / perfect flow & perfect production from LeoStayTrill / ethereal alt pop from internet fave Mikey Enwright / sexiest Jeffrey Sfire / good cover / and another / and another.

Other non music things I listened to and enjoyed recently: a truly fantastic episode of Desert Island Discs with jazz writer, historian and photographer Val Wilmer, who has lived through the latter half of the 21st century, and whose stories, knowledge and perspective are matched only by her taste. I also liked Jon Ronson’s recent series about the post pandemic culture wars… I really like him, despite his occasional ahistorical perspectives (I remember feeling like So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed missed the mark a bit), and this specific episode of Blindboy about dolphins and flotation chambers and valentines day.

Nothing special to eat today because I have only attempted one new recipe in the last few weeks (steamed eggs) and failed. Hopefully by next time I’ll have mastered it.

Till next time - happy chitting xxx