Rambling With Bill Clinton To The Theatre

So where did I get to? You will recall (if you haven't anything better to do) that I was illustrating the sport of Internet rambling - aimlessly drifting around the Internet following a series of semi-random links. So far the trail had taken me from a gramophone via Cicely Courtneidge, Van Gogh's "The Mousmé", the Clarion Newspaper, and Walter Crane, to the Project Gutenberg Library where you left me reading ST Snow's riveting account of his 50 years as an accountant. So now read on.....

With the best will in the world I soon got bored with Mr Snow - brass founding and accountancy make a soporific cocktail - and in the best traditions of Internet rambling I began to browse through the collection of thousands of free books available from the site. For no particular reason, my attention eventually focused on G K Chesterton's 1922 book "What I Saw In America". I have always had my doubts about Chesterton : his politics stunk and his religious views were a trifle suffocating. However, I read his thoughts on his lecture tour of the USA with growing interest. Let me just quote a couple of sentences from the chapter entitled "Presidents and Problems".

"All good Americans wish to fight the representatives they have chosen. All good Englishmen wish to forget the representatives they have chosen. This difference, deep and perhaps ineradicable in the temperaments of the two peoples, explains a thousand things in their literature and their laws. The American national poet praised his people for their readiness 'to rise against the never-ending audacity of elected persons.' The English national anthem is content to say heartily, but almost hastily, 'Confound their politics' "

I am always slightly suspicious of exercises in blanket analysis - "the difference between the British and Americans is ...", "men are from Mars, women are from Heckmondwyke", that kind of thing - but I was intrigued by the claim that "all good Americans" wish to fight the representatives they have chosen. It dovetailed into something I heard on American radio news the other day: the claim that the Obama Honeymoon was already drawing to a close. So I went rambling in search of some evidence.

The above graph comes from the Wall Street Journal website and seems to give support for the Chesterton Theory : after electing Presidents there is nothing Americans like to do more than to fight them. There are, however, some notable exceptions to the prevailing shape of the support curve : notably the trend in support for President William J Clinton. What was Clinton doing that the other Presidents were not. Before choosing the obvious and the salacious answer I decided to go rambling through the William J Clinton Presidential Library and Museum. Initially, this was a somewhat disappointing adventure : the Museum authorites seemed to want me to pay $5 to look around and - even worse - travel to Arkansas to do so (I have nothing against Arkansas, it's just a long way). I tried taking the virtual tour of the Museum but the camera angle kept swinging wildly, making me feel somewhat seasick. Even if you follow the "Research" link you mainly get either lists of documents which are stored in the library or photographs you can download at $5 a time. You can download the President's Daily Schedules for all his eight years' of office but who wants to do that when there is interesting stuff like paint to watch drying.

In search of something interesting, I switched Presidents and called in on the Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project. This is much more like it : there are buttons to press, movies to watch and songs you can download and sing along with. I was particularly fond of one called "King Alcohol" which will in future be an integral part of my repertoire when staggering back from the pub quiz on a Friday night. Perhaps you would like to join me in singing the chorus:

King Alcohol has had his day

His kingdom's crumbling fast

His votaries are heard to say

Our tumbling days are past.

I rambled on to the official Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Museum and Foundation, a more sober destination and again one which seeks to sell you tickets rather than provide you with information. To get your hands on the source information you need to visit the collection of the Complete Abraham Lincoln Papers which are stored at the Library of Congress. You could wander through this collection for weeks or months : it is absolutely fascinating. I found myself reading a copy of the letter from James S Knox to his father. Knox and decided to go to Ford's Theatre on the night of the 14th April 1865 and there he witnessed the assassination of President Lincoln. The letter tells of the event with some force and feeling and you can easily imagine yourself with Knox as he jumps onto the stage in pursuit of John Wilkes Booth. And it is on the stage at Ford's Theatre that my ramble must end for today. But I will resume and conclude the adventure on Thursday.

All A Load Of Balls

I had a bit of an accident this weekend. I blame my friend Harry and his constant attempts to get me fit. Let me take you back a few weeks to when we were away on holiday. The day in question started like most others : we were sailing across the blue waters of the Mediterranean and the sun was streaming down like honey (I have stolen that phrase from a song but for the life of me I can't remember which song). Harry was - as usual - doing his daily ration of 35 laps of the Promenade Deck between visits to the gym. Elaine, Isobel and I were - as usual - sat somewhere eating cakes. Harry found us in one of the many on-board restaurants and gleefully informed us that he had just been to a talk entitled "Secrets of a Flatter Stomach" and that all we needed to do was to invest in an exercise ball, sit on it for a few minutes each day, and our lives would be transformed.

The ever-increasing strain on the buttons holding my trousers together indicated that my life was in need of transformation. Later on the cruise - following an evening meal which left Elaine, Isobel and I unable to get up from the table - the three of us decided to lose two stone each before we next set sail in January 2010. Visiting H&E last week I discovered that she had already purchased an exercise ball and therefore I rushed to buy my own. The important thing in relation to getting fit - I read somewhere - is to establish an exercise regime and to stick to it. So I did. Mine was to sit on the exercise ball each evening as I watched Coronation Street. If the claims for the biomechanical ball, as related by Harry, were even half true, the weight would fall off me like honey dripping from a roasted hive (I haven't stolen that phrase from a song, but I feel I should have done).

The problem was within a few days I had forgotten my resolution and misplaced my resolve. Coronation Street was once again viewed from the comfort of the armchair and the blasted ball sat in a corner, unloved. But then it started to follow me around : I am not joking, it moved. On Saturday I was in the kitchen wondering whether to have a bag of crisps or a doorstep of toast, when it rolled across the floor towards me. Spooky. I was instantly reminded of Rover, the patrolling ball in The Prisoner series. Anyone familiar with the series - and if you aren't why aren't you? - will know that Rover used to impose discipline by slowly suffocating those trying to escape the Village. My Gym Ball was telling me something and I needed to obey.

So I sat on the blasted thing. Then I balanced with my feet off the floor whilst still eating my bag of crisps. And then I fell off. The motion of the bloody ball sent me flying into the side of the radiator and exposed me to the most excruciating pain I have felt since the birth of my son (why on earth you women moan, you have no idea what it is like for the father). So here I sit with my arm covered in bruises, with pains shooting where pains should not be shooting. I am going to have to have something to eat to take away the hurt. Exercise and dieting - it's all a load of balls.

Quiz Of The Week : 12th July 2009

Here are this week's questions. I have posted the answers to last week's questions as a comment to that post.

1. Which regiment of the British Army had its headquarters in Halifax until its amalgamation with other regiments in 2006?

2. Of which country did Haile Selassie become emperor of in 1930?

3. Which religious movement claim that Haile Selassie was a reincarnation of Jesus Christ and worship him as one of the holy trinity?

4. Which actor, born Michael Dumble-Smith, took his stage name from a passing biscuit wagon? 5. Which is the largest island in the Caribbean?

6. Which woman has won the most Ladies Singles titles at Wimbledon?

7. Who holds the record as the youngest person to win Wimbledon?

8. What is Mulligatawny?

9. On which street did the Great Fire of London start? Bonus point for the year

10. What three films have each won 11 Oscars?

11. What is measured using the Mohs Scale?

12. In the 1950s, who was President Eisenhower’s Vice President who later became President in his own right?

13. True or false : The non-stick coating for pans was invented by Eugene Teflon?

14. Which organ of the body produces bile?

15. Which is the only continent that is wider in the south than in the north?

16. What is the name of the Pennsylvanian power station which had a nuclear accident in 1979?17. Who was R2D2’s robot companion in “Star Wars”?

18. What is Persia now called?

19. What is Mesopotamia now called?

20. Charlotte, Harmony, Nicola and Nadine are all varieties of what?

Grave News

It has become my habit to listen to American MSNBC News each morning as I walk the dog. This is not as difficult as it sounds : you just tell your computer to automatically download the podcast of the evening news and then transfer it onto a passing MP3 Player. Judging by what the station sees as the main items of national and international news, there is both good news and bad news. The good news is that the country has managed to survive "the tragic death of the world's greatest ever entertainer", the bad news is that the country is beset by a new crime wave which takes the form of the multiple selling of cemetery plots. The idea seems to be that you sell a plot to a family and then after a suitable time - when distraught mourners no longer regularly bring tear-stained bouquets of flowers - you dig the body up, smooth the ground over and sell the plot again. This would seem to be the kind of entrepreneurial initiative that we are so in need of in order to clime our way out of the current recession and I have sent a copy of the newspaper clipping to our new Entrepreneurial Tsar, Lord Sugar of Canderel.

By chance I was sorting through a box of family papers looking for something interesting to post about (Friday is, after all, Family History Day on News From Nowhere) and I came across this certificate concerning Plot 988 (Section E) of Bowling Cemetery. The Abraham Moore in question is my fathers', sisters', husbands', father (perhaps I should draw a diagram but I can't be bothered). As far as I know my Uncle Harry was the surviving child and when he died I inherited all that was left. There was a nice little house which saw us through some difficult times when we were poor. Other than that, I thought there were only a few photographs and a piano stool. But now, it seems, I also inherited a burial plot.

Next week, when I have a bit of free time, I will hot-foot over to Bowling (a suburb of Bradford) and inspect my inheritance. I hope that the American business model has not spread to this country yet. I will report back.

Brother Gorilla

Reading the news the other day that 30 chimpanzees had escaped their enclosure at Chester Zoo, I was reminded of that delicious Georges Brassens song, Brother Gorilla, which the late Jake Thackray used to feature in many of his performances. There is a good clip of Jake doing the song on YouTube and I am enclosing a link with this post.

The song dates back to the days when France still used capital punishment and is a wonderfully witty and shockingly stinging attack on the practice. The song tells the tale of a circus gorilla who, through "an administrational cock-up", manages to escape. Having just one thought on his mind ("he was just at the difficult age") he sets out to lose his chastity. All the women who had been previously watching him with lascivious joy did a bunk ("which shows how devious and whimsical women are") and the only two people left in the path of the love-sick monkey are a little old lady and a Petty Sessions Judge. The final three verses conclude the story :

It would be curious and uncanny,

Say, if the choice were up to you

To ravish a judge or a granny

And you didn't know which to do.

If I were in such a position

And the choice had got to be mine,

I'd beg the old lady's permission

But go for grandma every time.

Brother Gorilla!

Though the gorilla is very proficient

In the role of a paramour

His mental equipment's deficient

And his eyesight's awfully poor.

With a Palaeolithic leer

He gave the old lady the miss

And, grabbing the judge by the ear,

Gave him an introductory kiss.

Brother Gorilla!

In time the gorilla's desires

Were more or less gratified.

The judge, being rather biased,

Couldn't see the funny side.

He was kicking and screaming and wailing

When his moment of truth had come,

Like those wretches he orders daily

To be taken away and hung.

Brother Gorilla!

Listen to Jake Thackray sing it, it is superb.

Keeping My Nose To The HTML Grindstone

I do intend to continue my rambling at some stage, otherwise I will be stuck forever in the Project Gutenberg Library (there are worse places to be stuck, I'm currently reading S T Snow's riveting chronicle of his 50 years as the accountant of the Revere Copper Co, Boston Mass). But for the moment my endeavours are focused on a more pressing problem : the refurbishment of the Marsden Jazz Festival website. As with all such jobs I have been putting it off for ages but I have now promised to get it completed by the coming weekend and therefore my rambling will be limited over the next couple of days.

The 2009 Festival approaches (9th - 11th October) with, if not the speed of an express train at least the speed of the Jazz Train service we will be running the weekend before the Festival. The 2009 Festival headliners include Georgie Fame, Ian Shaw, Iain Ballamy and the Haggis Horns. But for me, one of the highlights will be hearing that wonderful young vibraphone player, Jim Hart, playing with my good mates Ben Crosland and Rod Mason. If I stick to my task and shun the pleasures of Internet rambling you should be able to see the full Festival line-up in just a couple of days time on the Marsden Jazz Festival website.

Painted House

So here it is - our development house all-but completely painted, now, outside. Light green, as you can see - mind you, this photo seems to have a green "cast" as well - (builder) Alan's truck in the foreground is actually pure white!! ... Two neighbours have said they don't like the colour (which is just too bad!) - but we really can't see why, it looks lovely (and much prettier than in this photo!)

Perhaps it's because it's the only green house in the cul-de-sac - there are several variations of creams (e.g., as just visible on the house to the left), (light) blues, a (light) pink, whites (dirty, as white always goes, why we didn't choose it!) and some un-painted (very dirty - as for the house to the right.) We decided any cream would clash with others around, wondered about blue but then thought equivalent green would be different and nice. It is - (and shucks to the complaining neighbours. Mind you, the one may have been teasing. Anyway, I let him use our skip....)

Alan's (it's him and son Alan taking a meat hook - (well, it looked like it) - off under the porch in this photo) nearly finished his jobs now, Dave (he's upstairs with his son Dave in this photo, but neither visible) has only half a flat left to skim-plaster, Mick has some more (internal) doors to fit and wainscotes to do, and the rest is up to us-two apart from some carpet laying and gas-man Martin to commission the boilers. Quite a lot for us to do but shouldn't really take very long - famous last words and all that! - few weeks rather than days, but that's all.

Official electrician Graham passed my (electrical) wiring for the upstairs flat yesterday - so only a final electrical test required now... which doesn't really worry me because I can do the same tests before he comes and so know they'll be OK - what was more worrying was the wiring approval - people have such different opinions about earthing (I just did what Graham told me!) and exactly how many clips to use per metre of a wire (as it were) - although the safest method is to use none - that way the wires are loose in the walls and ceilings so if you put a nail or screw in and it hits a wire, chances are the wire will be pushed out the way rather than spiked. (Bet you lot never realised that! Or even thought about it, of course - why should you?)

Paid £500-plus for a compulsory acoustic test next Monday - sound insulation between the flat's bedrooms and rooms above (or below.) Really annoying, give me two decibel meters and Jane and I could do it in ten minutes. It's like our approval certificate for thermal insulation - an automated computer print-out of assumed values - not even measured - given our specifications. Another £500 or so, that was, for a print-out of assumptions. It sure is a crazy world of regulations that are so often so questionable.

Ah, well, should all be done quite soon, now...

Rambling On : By Bike To Gutenberg

So where did I get to? Yesterday's ramble - you will recall - finished up with "The Mousmé" which was both a painting by Van Gogh and a light operetta first performed in 1909. As I was closing the various digital windows last night I noticed that the operetta was based on a book by Alex M Thompson and Robert Courtneidge. Two Courtneiges in the space of one ramble was too much of a coincidence and therefore the starting point for today's excursion was easy to determine.

Robert Courtneidge (1859 – 1939), was a famous actor, theatrical manager-producer and playwright and he was the father of Cicely (whom we met yesterday). His greatest success was achieved not as a playwright - if you spend a few minutes reading the script of "The Mousmé" you will understand why - but as a producer specialising in importing American musicals and re-packaging them for the British stage. One of the most interesting things about Courtneige was that he was a passionate socialist, as was the person who was the co-author of "The Mousmé", Alexander Mattock Thompson (1861 – 1948).

Thompson was a fascinating character, born in Germany, raised in France and starting his career as a journalist in Manchester. It was in Manchester that he met the socialist writer Robert Blatchford and together they launched a newspaper that would have a profound impact on the early labour movement in Britain - The Clarion. Not only did the Clarion play an important role in winning converts to the labour movement - it was said that for every one person converted to socialism by reading Das Kapital, 100 were converted by reading The Clarion - it also gave rise to a series of cycling clubs for working people - the Clarion Cycle Clubs.

The Clarion is long-gone (I'm almost tempted to say "socialism is long-gone" but I can't bring myself to say it) but the Clarion Cycle Club lives on both in the form of a national club and also a series of local branches. I was delighted to discover that there is a local branch - the Calder Clarion Cycling Club - which seems to be as active as ever. However I fear that the main diversions of club members these days are cycling and socialising rather than cycling and socialism.

As you can see from the original Club letterhead - designed by the great socialist artist and illustrator Walter Crane - the pursuit of socialism was once as important, if not more important, than the pursuit of time trials or race records.

As well as designing letterheads for socialist clubs, Walter Crane (1845 – 1915) was an accomplished and famous book illustrator, who specialised in illustrating children's books and nursery rhymes. His wonderful children's book "A Song Of Sixpence" which contains so many of his rich, colourful and fabulous illustrations is available to download, free of charge, as part of the Project Gutenberg initiative. Once you get a little weary from rambling, there is no finer way to relax than to settle down with a good book in the comfort of the Project Gutenberg website.

Rambling With Van Gogh On The Gramophone

I was at a party the other day and talking to someone I vaguely knew from somewhere when the conversation worked its way around to that old standby, "so what are you doing these days?" "Nothing", I replied in my usual response to this most annoying of questions. "Ah", he said, not knowing whether to be upset that I was unemployed or pleased that I was retired. Eventually I gave in and filled the silence with, "I do a lot of rambling". "Oh, great", he replied, delighted that he had found someone who had discovered that healthy outdoor exercise is an effective antidote to the misery of either the dole queue or old age. "And where do you go?" he continued, warming to his theme and hoping to discuss ridge paths across the Brecon Beacons or some such stuff. "Just around the Internet", I replied. At this point he remembered a sudden wish to discuss crafting supplies with a large lady in a red cotton dress and fled across the room.

I wasn't being my usual annoying self, there is nothing I like more than going rambling around the Internet. It is not my fault that other people do not see this as a suitable occupation for a respectable elderly gentleman. They obviously don't understand what fun it can be. So just in case my party companion is reading this, let me try to explain what is entailed in Internet rambling.

This morning I set off rambling with no particular destination in mind and fairly quickly discovered, by complete chance, the website of the magazine "The Gramophone". For people who do not know it, "The Gramophone" has been around for donkey's years and prides' itself on being "the world's greatest classical music magazine". I am no great lover of classical music but I do love historical archives and I was delighted to discover that they have recently digitised every issue of their magazine since 1923 and - wonderful people that they are - made the archive available on-line free of charge. I can never pass an open archive without taking a dip in, and so in no time I was reading the December 1933 issue of the magazine. Whilst much of the editorial content was related to mainstream classical music, the adverts had a wider range. One advert for HMV records caught my eye and in particular, the description of the latest gramophone release by Cicely Courtneidge which was entitled "Loud and Prolonged Laughter". "Men and Women", proclaimed the advert, "with a reputation for iron self-control should think twice before they listen to Cicely Courtneidge. Very few comedians are as adept as Cicely Courtneidge in producing those sharp yelps of laughter which simply cannot be suppressed even amid the most august surroundings".

I have always thought of myself as having "iron self-control" and therefore my rambling could only take me in one direction. I managed to find a small selection of the songs by Ms Courtneige on Napster and listened to one charmingly called "Oh Dear, Little Jappy Girls". The lyrics include the following lines:

Men are all the same, Foolish and conceited;

Well, they're not to blame, It's the way they're treated.

Really it's absurd of you, At their feet to grovel;

Take them down a peg or two, As you'll find the ladies do,

In an English novel!

Oh dear! Little Jappy girls, If you would be happy girls,

Don't be so afraid of men, Snub them now and then!

You'll find you can manage them, On the English plan.

The song comes from a 1909 operetta called "The Mousmé", and a little further rambling took me to an on-line edition of the complete score. A little further research and I discovered that I could download the complete music from the production in karaoke format!

But what on earth is a Mousmé? According to the Wiktionary definition (more rambling you see), it means a young Japanese mistress. Perhaps the most famous association with the term is a painting by Vincent Van Gogh which is called The Mousmé. Van Gogh painted the picture in 1888 and in a letter to his brother Theo he described how this painting consumed his attention: “It took me a whole week…but I had to reserve my mental energy to do the mousmé well.” The title, he explained, came from a character in a popular novel set in Japan. “A mousmé is a Japanese girl—Provençal in this case—twelve to fourteen years old.”

So I started with a gramophone and I finished with a picture of a young French girl. That's rambling. It occupied most of the morning and it beats the Brecon Beacons any day.

Love In Six Months For The Clayton Girls

I never cease to be amazed by the ability of Google AdSense to find the most extraordinary links based on the content of blog postings. The other day I posted a piece about my mother's three Clayton cousins who were born at the close of the nineteenth century and lived all their lives as spinsters in a little terraced house in Clayton, near Bradford. Within 24 hours the Ad on the blog had changed to "Girls In Bradford : Thousands Of Singles In Bradford. Love In 6 Months, Or 6 Months Free!" What would Cousins Ada, Clara and Ellen made of it all? I like to think that they might just have clicked on the link.

Quiz Of The Week : 5th July 2009

The other week we won the weekly Spitfire Quiz and therefore it was my turn to set the quiz this week. For all those of you who like a quiz question to cogitate on over Sunday lunch here are the first twenty of the questions (I will post more next week). I will add the answers as a comment to this posting during the week.

1. In which decade did the Charleston become a popular dance?

2. Which British Prime Minister once played first-class cricket for Middlesex?

3. Who was the God of Wine in Roman mythology?

4. In which American state is Las Vegas?

5. In which year did ITV start?

6. Who won the long-jump at the 1968 Mexico Olympics?

7. What is Welsh for Wales?

8. Stromboli was a villain in which Disney film?

9. Stromboli is a volcano off the coast of which Mediterranean island?

10. The mother of which Monkee member was the multi-millionaire inventor of “Liquid Paper”?

11. What is the world’s largest rodent?

12. How many players are there in a netball team?

13. What is the southernmost point of the English mainland?

14. What is the name of the lines drawn on weather maps linking places with the same atmospheric pressure?

15. What instrument did George Formby play?

16. The plough is part of which constellation?

17. Who completed the first solo flight across the Atlantic?

18. In which year did Muhammed Ali first become World Heavyweight Boxing Champion?

19. In which country is Strasbourgh?

20. In which city were the 2004 Olympic Games held?