Kenny Rogers - Darkness in the Lite

Seeing that Kenny Rogers is playing Glastonbury tickled me. This is because of his song Coward of The County. When it was doing the rounds in the early 80's it was the kind of thing I would walk out of the room to get away from. Dreadful country schmaltz sung by Father Christmas in his civvies. Much later, during one of the periodic outcrys about Rap lyrics, I think it was Ice T's Cop Killer, this song came back to me.

 I don't recall any demands that CotC be banned for its content, and this was a era when you could get banned for just about anything. So it proved that if  the singer is an old bloke with  a beard and  the tune is Nashville syrup you can get away with writing an approving reflection on a man's violent revenge  against the brothers who gang raped his girlfriend. 

This song was a huge international hit, but in the country cannon it is not alone in its dark subject matter. Violence, often sexually motivated is a presence in many old country songs. In the early 50's Molly O'Day sung of Ellen Smith being found murdered 'clothes scattered all around.' Nic Cave has enjoyed excavating this murky side of country. It can be heard in the Louvin Brothers and even in the clean cut Everley's. Listen past the staid performance and the plaintive harmony and one can hear the voice of an older darker world. 

When poverty is about more than money

370000 people over 75 spend no time with anyone on a typical day. Nobody, not family, friends or a warden.  That is the startling statistic in a new paper by the  Centre for Social Justice as part of the hanover@50 debate. The key message is that to rely purely on financial indicators masks the true poverty of many older people. This level of isolation has huge impacts on health and mortality. But as the paper highlights, material and relational poverty often goes together.
Relationship breakdown, a more fragmented society and working patterns are cited as the cause. The solutions comes less readily to hand. Stronger couple relationships and more flexible employment are easier to say than do. But we cannot afford to ignore the challenge.

Siouxsie at Meltdown

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Otis Redding and the Water Cooler Moments

Did you see it? Brilliant wasn't it.
I watched the BBC4 night on Otis Redding and the Stax tour of Europe a week or so ago, and was blown away by just how good that music was. But also being thrilled that rather than simply being a contractual obligation, the trip to Europe actually meant something to musicians involved. That the passion, the vitality, that huge wave of energy they set free was in part a response to the love they were feeling from their audience. The nice little footnote that when he went on stage at Monterey Otis told his band to 'play it like we did in Europe.'
But there was something more about it. Ever since then I have been running into people saying 'did you see it? Great wasn't it.' It is as if BBC4 has managed to wake something, remind us of something that we had half forgotten. They freed that music from  the smothering blanket of lacklustre covers and cloying tribute, by bringing us back face to face with the source material.

When the Spirit is Mean

Read a lengthy article based on research by the Taxpayers Alliance (what a fun gang this lot must be) that left me thorough pissed off with the jaded, mean spirited carping side of our political culture. The article was highlighting some mammoth sums allegedly wasted by the public sector. Now I am all for efficiency and accountability. But much of what made up this number was of dubious provenance. This applied to their figures big and small. The biggest item was a notional difference between what public sector pensions are and what they would be in the private sector. Without a genuine and detailed review of the total reward packages for equivalent roles between the public and private world it is completely bogus to focus on one single part of the equation and say it's waste. For example if these services were being delivered in the private sector we would have to pay for shareholder dividends.
But even more churlish were some of the smaller items. It sneered at the £9000.00 spent on ipads by Bury Council to be used in the enforcement of recycling. Why is that a waste? I would suggest that ipads are a very effective tool for capturing and communicating evidence. £30000 spent on a newt sanctuary. Well the council in question is required to do this as some newts are a protected species. I may not be munch interested in newts, but if we care about protecting our natural environment then sometimes it will cost a few quid.
Stories about the public servants who routinely go above and beyond are not news.  I work with people who are passionate about the communities they serve, and rather than skimming the public purse give way beyond their contracted hours. But more than this, if we fall into accepting a narrative that all public servants are either incompetent or grasping it reinforces a mean spirited culture that makes us all poorer.

Great Places to Eat - Doh!

Having sung the praises to the @matthewsyard brunch a little while back it looks like I spoke to soon. Went down there this morning looking forward to a nice Eggs Benedict. Disappointment! They have ditched the whole brunch thing in exchange for offering  toasted flat bread sandwiches. I am sure it is lovely whatever emerges from their George Forman type grilling thing, but.... Its just the same as whatever where else does. Its still a fine place, but now just a little bit less special. Growl.

Cycle Sport on TV

ITV4's Tour Series is coming towards its conclusion for 2013. Catching up with the last round night I was struck by a coupe of things. One that it has now become a well established event in the Calendar. But also how it highlights the huge difference in the treatment of Men and Women's racing.  For the male side of the sport the tour series is a fun slightly low rent side show in terms of coverage. ITV4 and Europort show the real stuff too, the Classics, Grand Tours. But for the Women's side, the Johnson Health Tech series is just about the only televised road event. What flows from this is the whole chicken and egg thing of  without coverage how can it attract sponsors, and grow.
Nicole Cooke's retirement interview exposed the massive divide in the sport. She was for a while the best in the world, but at her peak was earning about £50k. Ok cycling is a long way behind golf and tennis in the big money stakes but this is a long way behind what Wiggo and Cav.
But what the Tour Series highlights is that the women's sport generates some great racing that can share a stage on something approximating to equal terms. For me Hanna Barnes has been the standout rider. So much so that it stands as a J'Accuse to the sport as a whole. Why don't Team Sky run a women's team? Why don't the UCI demand more of its members. And for the Broadcasters, there are women's versions of the classics that are contested fiercely, but on Eurosport and ITV 4 you wouldn't know. It is a long time to the next Olympics, the only chance for Women racers to ride one level road with the men. Something needs to move on.