VISIBLY QUEER - Piers Gaveston

Gaveston's Assassination

The further back in history one goes, the harder it can be to discern when someone queer is present. Royal lives alone are documented, however sketchily, and exhibit only euphemistic suggestions of any queerness. Usually it will be a scandal that kicks up comment in the parchment chronicles of the time.

Kings, they're always magnets for gossip and whatever the medieval equivalent of the paparazzi was. Edward 2nd, yes, he liked a bit of boy on boy, and his reign terminates with a infamously painful end. Its all salaciously recounted. History tends to obscure how the lower class male object of his affections came to prominence. How on earth would you chat up a king? Piers Gaveston was the first of Edward's known lovers, but who the hell was he?

Was he haughty? Was he charming? Was he sexy?  Truly lovely to behold? Was he impulsive? Was he narcissistic? Was he a bitch, arrogant, manipulative and toxic? Was he dangerous to be associated with? Was he a bit of a cock tease? Was he a man on the make prepared to do anything to gain power? Was he clever? Was he just a pretty bit of totty? A toy boy readily available for a French speaking Plantagenant monarch to abuse his position of power with?

Gaveston, turns up at the Royal Court, from a background of very minor but respected nobility. Hoping, no doubt, to advance his families position. He's about 16 years old, and is consciously placed in the prince's retinue by Edward 1. His already impressive military skills and good conduct made the king think he'd be a exemplary influence on his feeble minded son. For his son's effeteness and predilections were already worryingly common knowledge. Gaveston. as the prince's contemporary, was placed there specifically to encourage Edward's son to 'man up'. Its soon clear the king has made a major misjudgement. For Gaveston and the prince join forces and gang up on the king, making any pre-existing tensions between son and father much worse.

What then follows are trial separations and ultimately exile, as the king attempts to part his son from the pernicious influence of Gaveston. The prince continues to secretly lavish expensive gifts and land on Piers. The king keeps insisting to his noble friends, that they must be kept as far apart from each other as is possible. But when the king dies in 1307 the new monarch immediately recalls Gaveston and makes him 1st Earl of Cornwall. Whilst the king does his duty and marries Isabella of France, and has children by her. He remains besotted with his teenage friend.

Edward 2nd elevates Gaveston defying all contemporary conventions, bestowing a higher level of responsibility upon him. Ones not usually given to someone of such relatively low standing. This enrages overlooked members of his family and royal court etiquette. Historians dispute whether the animosity towards Gaveston and the King's relationship with him, was anything more than a distaste of his cockiness, unwarranted influence and status. But cannot entirely refute that the underlying sexually 'perverted' nature of the friendship between king and favourite, could be the central reason that was poisoning court loyalty.

Marlow's play, written over two hundred years after the event, leaves you in no doubt that he considers the upset was primarily over the latter. He was reflecting well established historical rumour in medieval chronicles of the time, onto which his elaborate dramatic fiction was draped. Factually it may not be clearly one side or the other in this debate, but a cumulative mess of a broad range of issues and events that led to the widespread hatred. There was something that they considered unhealthy in the closeness, love and unwavering devotion that the King held towards Gaveston. It had deeply infuriated his father, and now the aristocracy felt the same exasperation too.

But it's clear that the Kings favourite was also prone to behaving truly badly, in such an unbearably preening and arrogant manner, that this was seen by the nobility as a considerable affront that needed curtailing. Without the King's knowledge Gaveston was banished, thrown into exile yet again, only to be quickly pardoned and return once Edward found out. In the end the only solution as far as the nobility were concerned, was to permanently remove Gaveston. They pursued him across the length and breadth of England, until he was captured near Kenilworth and, at the relatively young age of 28, was summarily beheaded.

Edward was,of course, enraged and ineffectively threatened revenge for a while. Though he was soon to find himself a replacement 'favourite' in Hugh Despenser. So the whole woeful tale of preferential errant behaviour began to repeat itself. This, for the nobility, was beyond all toleration. Eventually this matter threw the king and nobility towards the very precipice of civil war. Edward, survived a further fifteen years after Gaveston's assassination. But once captured and imprisoned, was quietly, and if myth is correct, gruesomely tortured and disposed of.

In the story of Piers Gaveston we have a gay man daringly flaunting his relationship and influence with the king, very much in the face of royal courtiers. He manages for a number of years to get how he is perceived, as Quentin Crisp puts it, 'on his own terms'. But being a very visible power behind the throne, whether you are a gay man or a woman, is rarely going to be a popular move. Its unlikely moral disapproval would have been voiced publicly in court circles. Though maybe in quiet hushed conversations well out of royal hearing, derogatory and euphemistic slanders may have been voiced. Gaveston holding such power, belittled the royal courts own, hence the necessity to remove him. As long as the king remained devoted there seemed nothing anyone else could do, other than to plot how to eventually remove and murder them both.

POEM - This Is

Poetry porn, 
its everywhere these days
in those hosts 
of gene-formed daffodils
wafting provocatively in a force ten gale
head banging to a pogo dance
with a leather jacket
there's a minor scratch of recognition
yet
is one ever ready
to die or to dance in the reverie?
each moment urging surrender  
to allow oneself to be enveloped
by the monstrous beat
of love, in veins bursting out of being corporeal
this passion walks past
like a drift of air
bounced in off the sea
instantly drowning out the desire
for television, a bland song, that boring book,
with the rattled tumbling dryad
of an ocean magician
this is
not a slow running tap
filling up a cold sink
this is
a sonorous gift, like
a cap casually thrown
into the lap of hearing.

Stephen Lumb
written June 2023

GNOSTIC OPTICS - Looking Down The Well

' There are many looking down the well
but few are diving deeply.'

Taken from The Gospel of Thoma
Translated by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd  2006

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 2006 - Marble House by The Knife

Whatever, Olaf & Karen Dreijer were set on when they formed The Knife in 1999, it was generally a pretty disjointed mode. An electronic based brother and sister duo notable for the studied furiousness with which they pursued their eclectic muse. Their first two albums, The Knife 2001 and Deep Cuts 2003, were composed of tracks where each one was going off on an entirely fresh oblique tangent from the last. Then they wrote the track Heartbeats, which they sold to Sony to be used on an advert, that went viral and became a hit for Jose Gonzales in 2003. Suddenly they were awash with money in a swanky new studio they could afford to build for themselves. 

Their next album Silent Shout 2006 was by far the most polished and commercially successful recording they made. The oddness was still there, as was their refusal to appear in their own videos, so we still have people miming as them, or animations. The Knife continued being determined to approach everything from the most oblique angle to be found. Much of The Knife's off kilter feel arose out of Karen Dreijer's vocal style. Continually sounding as though she were Bjork's mentally deranged second cousin, which is saying something.

Marble House is a latin tinged track from Silent Shout. It's remarkable in their recordings for the sense of warmth and delicacy with which it deals with its subject matter. The song is about an aging couple living in their home, caring for each other out of love, when this is becoming increasingly more difficult. It is for me one of their finest and most poignant moments.

I cut your nails and comb your hair
I carry you down the stairs
I wanted to see right through from the other side
I wanted to walk a trail with no end in sight

The moment we believe that we have never met
Another kind of love it's easy to forget
When we are all alone then we do both agree
We have a thing in common, this was meant to be

You close my eyes and soothe my ears
You heal my wounds and dry my tears
On the inside of this marble house I grow
And the seeds I sow will grow up prisoners too

The moment we believe that we have never met
Another kind of love it's easy to forget
When we are all alone then we do both agree
We have a thing in common, this was meant to be

Now where's your shoulder, what is its name
What's your scent, say it again
If it goes faster
Can you still follow me
It must be safe
When it's on TV

I raise my hands to heaven for curiosity
I don't know what to ask for, what has it got for me
The others say we're hiding, it's as forward as can be
Some things I do for money, some things I do for free

After this, the duo deliberately set out to sabotage their own pop success. This involved doing what they'd previously done by instinct, but this time very very self consciously re-asserted.  All the disconcerting playfulness, charm and freaky fun, replaced with confrontational weirdness, underpinned with a left field gender politics. With the album Shaking The Habitual, the last from this duo, their was still a glimmer left of the old The Knife there, in amongst the radical sloganeering. But it often felt as though this was far too forced and stridently contrived. 

Karen Dreijer, went off to do Fever Ray, which, aside from the debut album that was perfect, has proved eventually to fall fowl of the same bizzare strained over stretching for oddity over originality, that plagued the final years of The Knife. Olaf has also released stuff since the The Knife, but hardly noticed in the UK. Though never actually finished, The Knife is still in the position of being temporarily shelved, with occasional flurries of excitable rumours about reforming, which have not yet surfaced into being found to be true.

FILM CLUB - I Know Where I'm Going

The Powell & Pressburger Season - 1945

Joan Webster ( Wendy Hiller ) is an independent minded woman, who much to her Father's surprise announces she is about to be married to a wealthy, but much older businessman. On the surface she seems a carefree but materialistically motivated person, who is consciously taking charge of the direction of her life, by marrying into money to secure rhat future. She receives an itinerary from her future husband, detailing all her rail changes, who will meet her and where she will travel to next. Joan says she knows where she is going in life. But this micro managing of her journey towards marriage tells you some of the price Joan will pay for the financial security she craves. It will be at the loss of her liberty. Nevertheless, Joan throws herself into this adventurous journey north into the Scottish Isles. Until she reaches the Isle of Mull where severe storms mean she is prevented from reaching the Isle of Kiloran where she is to be married. 

Forced to stop and be still for several days Joan begins to befriend the people she encounters on Mull. The charismatic Torquil MacNeil ( Roger Livesey ) a naval officer heading for shore leave on Kiloran.  Catriona ( Pamela Brown ) a fiery and free spirited woman who believes 'Money isn't everything'. She has a similar self willed life motivation to Joan, but is unwilling to compromise her independence and integrity. Everything about community life on Mull has a more self sufficient and simple wholesome character to it, this is not how Joan has ever lived previously. 

Joan starts to find herself falling for Torquil, whilst clinging determinedly to carrying out her intention to reach Kiloran and be married. This results in her taking a boat out in dangerous weather despite everyone warning she shouldn't. Torquil deciding to accompany her, manages to save the boat from sinking, turning the boat around and returning everyone safely to Mull.  Surviving the turbulent storm of her own emotional reactivity, as well as this near disasterous boat trip, becomes a literal turning point in their relationship. Resisting overturning the barriers to their love starts to crumble. She knows where she is going now, but this time in her heart, not just her head.

I Know Where I'm Going, is an unabashed romantic movie, packed with all the quirky eccentricities one comes to expect from a Powell & Pressburger production. It is comedic and utterly charming, whilst also being a sly satire on the naked pursuit of money. They consciously wanted to make a film that was a 'Crusade against materialism.' There is a believable magnetism and chemistry on screen between Hiller and Livesey. It was filmed in black and white whilst The Archers waited for colour stock to become available so they could make A Matter of life & Death. 

It is, nonetheless, a hugely satisfying movie, beautifully and inventively shot, with a deft handling of local accents, culture and character. All the more miraculous for being shot in both the Isle of Mull and a studio, because Livesey was in a play in the West End so couldn't travel to film in Scotland. It was the last film where they used the cinematographer Erwin Hillier, who shot it all, astonishingly, without the aid of a light meter. The storm at sea and the whirlpool at Corryvrekan were carefully composed and edited from film they shot in the Scottish Isles. Whenever time, money or circumstances became straightened Powell & Pressburger were always able to rise to a situation, and make circumstances work for them to their best advantage.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

FINISHED READING - 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

And so I come to review this immense brick of a book. I can see there is always with a trilogy of novels a desire in a publishers mind to produce a compendium volume. Each of the three parts of 1Q84 comes in at over three hundred pages, so they clock up just under a thousand pages when combined. This produces probably the most unwieldy book I've ever read physically in paperback. A hardback, though it would've added more weight obviously,  could have provided greater purchase in the holding of it. As it is, it can affect your reading experience. Put this in your satchel bag, I can tell you this novel is a pretty weighty thing to be carrying about. It might be categorised as an offensive weapon.

So that's the physical experience of reading 1Q84, what's it like as a novel? The story has all the familiar Murakami tropes. Its a strangely off kilter love story of Aomame and Tengo. They met briefly, but significantly, as children and each believes they will meet once again by accident later in life. Aomame has become a sports trainer and professional assassin. Frequently employed by a retired dowager to despatch abusive men. Tengo is a brilliant maths teacher, and an aspiring writer, who gets drawn into rewriting a novel sketchily written by a strange seventeen year old girl. Throughout the three parts of this novel their lives become increasingly life threatened and entwined in their destiny, even as they struggle to find each other again.

Aomame and Tengo live in a separated facet of 1984, in 1Q84. The only way to know you are in 1Q84 is that it has two moons. The book that Tengo rewrites, Air Chrysalis, describes an abusive religious cult the Sakegate and how they are being manipulated by their Leader and he in turn is being used as some sort of avatar by The Little People. What this fictional novel described then starts to mirror or predict lives and experience. Also our reading of it starts to develop multi dimensional qualities.  Real life experience and the novel re-formin the nature of the experience. Is the novel that Tengo is in the process of writing, the story of Aomame we are reading, and does that have more than just a fictional existence?

So 1Q84 is a hugely ambitious novel, if only by virtue of its scale. It managed to keep my attention without in the end fully justifying its length. It has an immersive quality, an easy relaxed pace and a way of captivating your attention, through interesting minor details of character. The world he creates is on the surface no different to any other dimension. There are always significant, but minor, discrepancies, such as the two moons, the Little People inhabiting and having influence in one world but not in another. There are also wacky anomalies, like Tengo's Father who, though in a coma, sends his ghostly spirit to knock on doors aggresively demanding the people inside pay him their TV License Fee. 1Q84 is a very engaging read. Though it is good, I would not describe it as his masterpiece.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

HIGHLIGHT OF MY WEEK - Jacob Lusk & Jules Holland

I've been a big fan of Gabriel's for a while. More precisely, the voice of Jacob Lusk that elevates everything that group does out of being just a serviceable soul band. The man has presence. Here on this weeks Later with Jules Holland, Lusk sings a piece of Gospel music that he grew up with - Lord Don't Move The Mountain. The thing with Lusk's vocal capability is that just when you think you've got the measure of his voice, he throws something at you that goes way way way beyond that. This is a classic performance on Later. It is a simply stunning showstopper, thrilling stuff to see and hear happening right before you. You can see the life enhancing delight written all over both of their faces at the end.

 

GNOSTIC OPTICS - If You Fear

' Don't be afraid of the body,
but don't adore it.
If you fear, it will gain mastery:
if you adore, it will render you helpless.'

Taken from The Gospel of Phillip
Translated by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd 2006

GOSSIP CALUMNY - 5/5 - Hanging Offence

Pictures of phallic shaped potatoes with hats and googly eyes peaking above foamy bath water, were everywhere in the papers the next day. With headlines like 'Ride em Cowboy' , 'Mr Potatoe Head, 'Spud -Pedo,' Much fun was being had at his expense. The rude photos and cartoon caricatures were in the tabloids. In the mainstream opinion columns they were in fully incensed mode, frothing about how reprehensible and abusive his behaviour had been. Questions were beginning to be asked why Henry was still in his job at the Express. Henry, meanwhile, carried on writing his column, and the ongoing but failng campaign to 'expose' Andy Barnes as a swine. Though that was now really a lost cause when placed against his own ever expanding and grosser infamy. Henry finally decided maybe it would be better if he took 'Garden Leave. Hoping he might be able to sit out the furore and at some suitable date return. But then an event pushed that time still further into the distant future.

Andy Barnes, had endured weeks and weeks of negative untrue stories about himself, most of them with their origin in Henry Beddington's column. The press paparazzi hounding him wherever he went. He'd been forced to abandon his own family home, wife and children, in a vain attempt to protect them, or at least diminish the amount of gross intrusion they had to face. He'd gone to ground, hid himself way out in a bothy in the wilds of Scotland somewhere, well out of range of hassle from the Metropolitan press elite. London press journalists rarely venturing beyond the constraints of the M25, it being alien country the further north you went. Once Andy had escaped their unwelcome attention, separated from his family and emotional support, his mental robustness took a serious dive, and in one sour drunken evening he'd attempted to take his life. Leaving a simple note - 'If you want to understand why, look no further than Beddington's fuckin lies.'

That became the banner headline - Beddington's Fuckin Lies. The press were not now in a mood to find him mildly amusing anymore. They were out to roast Henry over his responsibility for pushing Barne's to an attempted suicide. Compiling a list of the stories he had promulgated about Barnes and printed a tick for TRUE or cross for a LIE by each. The majority, given Henry's 'self-brewing', unsurprisingly were found to be the latter. 

Without any further question the Express quickly suspended, then sacked Henry. Promising an investigation from its own feeble ethical standards committee. They went through all the motions of seeming to do the right thing. Neglecting to acknowledge their role, that all these lies that had been listed had once been approved by them, they'd been more than happy to print. Willing to overlook not just a little, but an immense amount of massaging of the facts. Because it sold papers, it kept folk reading online. The many victims and casualties of Henry's column over the decades, recounted their own mental struggles and grievances against Henry and his column, with pleasurable revenge. It turned into a public stoning. Andy Barnes would survive. Though now he needed to be turned into something approaching a living saint. The Sun having signed and paid him in advance for this already, the moment he'd first emerged from a comotose state in hospital.

Without his work, Henry had no scrap of purpose left. No one would let him buy things on account any more. The cafe wouldn't set aside his favourite lunch, his special secluded corner was gone, always booked by some ne'er do well  Worst of all Rebecca up and left. Without a PA, he had to relearn how to type, to deal with the messy complexity of his finances, the alimony, stock market arrangements, mortgages on his three houses, the simple daily expenditure of living in London. It became obvious, once he started to do this for himself, just how much he was living beyond his present means. Funds were fast dwindling. No one was going to offer him any work anytime soon, nor touch him with a barge pole. Not even the scuzzy end of right wing nut jobs, such as a Talk TV host, or that home for has been journos - GB News. Not a whiff of interest from these or any other quarter. 

There was, he realised one channel still available to him. he'd joined the status of those who' as a consequence of verbal slips, racial euphemisms, moral laxity or sexually Neanderthal transgressions., found themselves 'cancelled' from mainstream media  Much as he hated the idea. It cost very little to set up and create a studio. He was going online, launching his own You Tube channel. From where he could champion real free speech, sexual libertarianism, and be the scourge of trendy woke ideology.  He was going to offer the truth according to Henry Beddington, to 'his people', who ever would like and subscribe. Within days of launching, there were millions of them. Companies sought him out proffering sponsorship deals. A new destiny dawned.

GOSSIP CALUMNY - 4/5 - Four Queens Speak

So far the past lovers rival gossip columnists had dug up, had been all too willing participants in his youthful priapic adventures in infidelity. Though he may have treated them with abysmal callousness when ending the affair, nothing, so far as he could discern, could be interpreted as abusive or a misuse of power in the engendering of it. Apart from grossly betraying his wives trust, sometimes with his next wife of course. He was a great lover of women, however profligate he may have been with his affections. Obviously, he didn't appreciate his sexual experimentations as a younger virile man being so publicly traduced and lampooned

It appeared, however, that by virtue of a Twitter frenzy, the press articles had had the exact reverse effect, in that they actually improved his popularity and public profile. For the first time in his fifty two years, though now no longer possessing a flat six pack, with a wine red nose and a disheveled dress sense, he was being lauded as an icon of male libertarianism. The Daily Mail absolutely loved him. Though Henry wasn't at all sure that particular endorsement helped much. It was a bit like Machiavelli praising one's ethical rectitude. 

Henry understood the rules of this game blindfold. Why were they holding his ex wives testimony back? Even he couldn't wait to hear what those three queens of his life had to say. Scandals always had a limited time and momentum to them, before fatigue set in. As long as you kept feeding them daily with new, fresh and juicy details, the fickleness of public interest might not depart. At some point the focus and pull of these revelations would inevitably need to be re-adjusted, or brought to an ignominious ending.

As though someone had a line tap on his innermost thoughts, the next day all three of his wives - Nola - Jessica  & Patricia -were on the front pages of the tabloids. And were they complaining about his infidelities? No. They all were quite happy for him to play away from home, because it left them free of the pressures of  'servicing his needs'. According to them he was so perpetually rampant, his 'needs' became literally oppressive to them. The down side of his widely spread infidelity was they were constantly seeking treatment for a venerial infection, or other such like. They made no complaint about the generous financial arrangements once they'd divorced him either. This was all going quite swimmingly well. Then Patricia, his most recent and longest lasting wife, dropped in an offhand comment that exploded into the awaiting stagnant cesspool.

She started talking about Chalfont/Clarissa, and how he'd always been Henry's favourite offspring, but 'to an unhealthy degree'. When asked what she meant by 'unhealthy' she was frank. He liked to get into the bath naked with him when he was a child.' And left the statement hanging there unexplained, then blurted out - 'You'll have to ask Chalfont/Clarissa about all that. All I'll say is that it marked him. If Chalfont/Clarissa is a little confused about themselves today, then this is largely his Father's fault'  Henry's eyes bulged, he covered his mouth lest anyone heard him scream, then cried out loudly - ' That is the lowest fucking level'

The teasing nature of the press attention, was now approaching its smutty hub, that waste of space that was his son. And he was still his son, even if he now wore makeup, heels and a heavily ruched silk dress to work. Chalfont/Clarrisa worked as a personal assistant to some up and coming trans designer, that Henry had never heard of. The photo used in all the papers showed his son had had quite bit of reconstructive work done recently. Where he'd got the money for this did perhaps not require a palm reader, look no further than one of the tabloids. To Henry he looked ever more like an arche, but high glamour version of his own Mother. In other words - patently ridiculous.

The interviewer wasted no time getting to what she wanted to hear about. 

'Could you tell me more about your childhood in relation to your Father, those times in the bath with you'

' What I remember is he loved to be naked and play with my toys in the bath with me. I don't remember if my Mother was around or not. I was young, two or three, I didn't think it odd at the time. It was fun playing with Dad. He appeared to get more and more enthusiastic, then onetime he got a hard on. Delighting in showing me his engorged member, he put a small hat and pair of goggly eyed glasses on it. Shouting 'ride em cowboy' repeatedly.  This happened just the once'.

'So he never did that ever again'

'No, not that.'

'Do you mean he did something else.'

'Well, he did used to dress up in Mum's clothes, when she was out. He got an erotic kick out of that too'

'He was aroused by it?'

'Yep, but. Mum and Dad divorced shortly after this. I've always assumed there was a link. My Father has always been completely lead by his dick, a devoted wife was never going to be enough for him. I was never enough for him either. He criticises my behaviour repeatedly.  Unable to please him in whatever I chose to do, I recognised a long time ago I'd never win with him. So now I just do whatever the hell I want. Since I started transitioning he refers to me as ' only a fig leaf of a man left' or ' that prosthetic woman'. So, as you can imagine, I want little to do with him.'

The bathroom incident Henry recognised, but not the inserted innuendo - the 'pedo' slant being put on it. He and his wife, had, during their days experimenting with Viagra and other performance enhancing drugs, taken to walking around the house stark bollock naked, all day long.  Both often in a highly charged states of arousal. Patrica knew that, but was deliberately omitting her part in this account of their permissively sexual decadence. 

The hard on in the bath had taken even him by surprise, which was why he'd tried to make fun of it. It was truly embarrassing to recollect. Particularly because he recognised how badly this was now landing. His explanation, however true it might be, would not diffuse any scurrilous misinterpretation, it may even make things worse. For in matters of sexual ethics, public opinion, often quite rightly, wants to believe the very worst in people. Any desire to establish the factual truth of the matter, being the first casualty slaughtered on the altar of salacious gossip. 

GOSSIP CALUMNY - 3/5 - A Bigger Prick

As it happened it turned out to be Petronella Rishworth, a relatively short lived, minor mistress from during his first marriage. In his mental sweep stake she was seven to one, to fire the starting gun on a free for all on his reputation. How she chose to do it - no holds barred going straight for the jugular, reminded him what he'd most enjoyed about his relationship with her. Unconventional, because she was the wealthy heiress of a fortune made in marmalade and pickles. Meaning she didn't need to care a fig what anyone thought of her. A fiery Yorkshire temper that he'd found quite a turn on. And a sprightly curious intelligence that never minded exposing the laughable hypocrisy of it all. In short, he'd felt she was very like him. How wrong he'd been.

Her version went like this:-

'Of course Henry Beddington is one prize shit, he was fucking me whilst still married to his first wife, for christ sake. So I guess I should have expected he'd one day piss on me from a great height with someone else. But I bloody well didn't expect it would be with my younger sister, who was only just over the age of consent at the time. It may be only a small dick, but it is attached to an even bigger tumescent prick, that certainly ensured it got itself liberally applied - absolutely everywhere it could.'

Henry, for a moment felt a certain pride in that statement, but couldn't quite place the name or face of her sister. After all this was over thirty five years ago. He didn't have to wait long. The following day a terse statement from Clarabelle Rishworth-Balls was published. He didn't recognise her middle aged older face from the photograph. She'd married a second league tennis player, with whom she was reputedly in a blissfully contented marriage and had three children. Under the headline - ' A Complete and Utter Wanker' - she was happy to fully put the boot right in.

' My, thankfully brief time with Henry Beddington was one of the most depressing disillusioning experiences of my entire life. He uses women atrociously like they are sexual chattels.  He did once possess a wild and debonair charm, which judging by his recent writing in his column he is no longer in possession of. He is just a crude and wrinkled hack now. The very worst incident was when he'd tried to coerce both Petronella and myself to do a three in a bed with him. We both refused, even when he begged on bended knee, offering vast amounts of money, for us to do it. He's a complete and utter wanker, however tiny that legendary dick maybe in reality.'

'Agh! thought Henry 'the constant little dick references? Theres' the rub, the standard belittling tactics of the wronged woman. Its been the same since Medea slit the thoats of her own children. Come on Bedders you invented a lot of this stuff. This is minor cat nip, the drip drip approach to defamation, tawdry scene setting, Keep rising above it, and this will just float away eventually in a wash of effluents.'

Nonetheless the litany of former mistresses, girlfriend's, so called 'friends' continued unrelentingly. Until it formed itself into a relationship lineage you could draw an elaborate mind map of. He'd been nothing if not thorough in the range, age and class of women he'd once taken to bed. Out there he was sure there were children that even their Mother's were loath to say were his. So much did they not want Henry Beddington forever in their lives. But when the press came a calling with their bottomless promises of money, its amazing how quickly mindsets were changed. At least some good could now come of that tawdry brief fling and progeny.

Henry felt he was beginning to respond with an uncharacteristic air of defensiveness
'So I liked sex, so what? Nothing wrong with spreading your seed widely. As far as I'm concerned, the entire validity and purpose of the British Empire was to fuck, or fuck over, anything that moved.'

For all its comprehensiveness, there was no killer blow he could see coming. None of his three former wives had yet broken cover, which  did concern him. What had been published so far struck him as simply titillating background reading, against which something else he suspected, would be shown in starker and more alarming contrast. He'd written this playbook, he recognised the rolling format. Though it was an entirely different and more disconcerting thing when it was being used against you. Impossible to second guess exactly what may be coming next, and it was his life they were mining for tittle tattle.

GOSSIP CALUMNY - 2/5 - When Word Gets Out

A particular focus of Henry's performative ire in his recent gossip columns had been a scandal that Henry had been 'self- brewing'. Previously there hadn't been much to be said about Andy Barnes, he was a bit of an anodyne personality. A broad empty smile, severe side parting, orange coloured skin and undoubtedly fake fair hair colouring. Partnered on his early evening magazine chat sofa by Sally Wallinger.  'A vacuous piece of fluff more than the intellectual equal of Andy' is how Henry described her. Both had worked there empty headed way up to adult programming, from unremarkable origins in kids TV. Mainly through working engagingly with hand puppets, both fabricated and human.

Henry discovered Andy had a distant cousin Don who, so it turned out, was a bit of an all round wanker. Done several turns with an ASBO as a youth, highly inappropriate behaviour towards women, leaning towards rapist, recently in court for selling recreational drugs in Brighton's backstreets, had once been known to be living rough on the streets of Hove. 'Self brewing' basically meant creating a scandal where one didn't really exist, but you used the dark media arts to conjure one into visible being. Henry just went to town on the sad bad story of Don. Did his best to implicate Andy in all his cousin's felonious activities. To basically slap tar on him as being made with exactly the same brush. Implying an ever growing scale of involvement. So he knowingly tolerated, then encouraged, progressing to engaged with Don's wrong doing himself. Done repeatedly, some of this scattering of wild seeds would stick.

That Andy had been estranged from Don for well over ten years, since his first stretch in prison for rape, was consciously overlooked. As was anything that might conceivably contradict the desired narrative thread that he alone was constructing. Henry had decided he was going to bring Andy Barnes down, in order to demonstrate that he still had the power to do so. He'd done this many many times before. Relishing the challenge of turning a complete innocent into a heinous pariah, preferably within a fortnight. This was what he did for fun.

It had not taken long for Chalfont's proposed change of gender to become a thing of ribald comment in the gossip columns of rival publications. Henry, of course, gave his son's decision not one single mention. He was a professional gossip columnist, he knew you could never starve a good story to death. Particularly when there was so much festering hate in the industry, and amongst celebrities, towards Henry. With decades worth of pleasure at other more famous folks reputational expense. So the desire in some to give him a good return kicking was going to prove irresistible. Even when some of them had a public standing that could not really get much lower. This never stopped any of them from pointing their grubby immoral finger at someone else's shit hitting the fan. Said finger becoming miraculously holier than thou.

Henry could sense all sorts of scum coming up to the surface. For his own life was not exactly short on areas for scandal and controversy, if you were determined to find them. The gossip fraternity had no doubt already done the research, taken and kept notes. But had stayed quiet about them, for fear of prematurely rousing Henry to go ballistic on them. They would be daily gaining in confidence, with the first whiff of ridicule over Chalfont having passed without comment from him. Once these early indications of weakness showed themselves, his invulnerable status would visibly sag, then open season would begin. 

Henry sensed this moments imminent arrival in his very bones. And he could tell exactly where it might be set alight from. One of his previous wives, mistresses or acrimonious ex-girlfriends would break the silence, that their non disclosure agreement was meant to impose. In his mind he was already running a mental sweep stake as to which one would be first.

GOSSIP CALUMNY - 1/5 - The Daily Routine Disrupted

Henry carefully placed the pen down. That was enough words. He'd reached around the usual limit for his column. Words in his hands, composed in his mind, became these instruments of correction. Applied sparingly but with the desired effect they became a scathing whip. Their only purpose to publicly shame their victim, and to do so hard. Instilled with his version of neo puritanism that was so prevalent these days. No longer religious, it now underlay most modern discourse with its secular strain of self righteousness and mortification.

His colleagues at the Express thought him the last crusty reprobate remaining on the paper. A view reinforced by the fact he wrote all his columns out in pen and ink. Defiantly old tech, a fuddy duddy affectation it maybe, but one that chimed with his insensitivity towards all contemporary moral niceties. The type seemingly always prefaced with hash tags. He'd never justify any of his behaviour or provide reasonings. Didn't feel he had to explain himself, ever. Just so long as his writing was good, delivered on time, who the fuck cared?  

Of course someone else had to type them up. That was his PA Rebecca's  job to sort that out. He never enquired how this actually happened, just so long as it did. On a rare occasion this well oiled process would foul up. The copyist perhaps misinterpreting his illegible inky scrawl, producedf a sentence of uncharacteristic opacity. In such circumstances, it was as though the writer suddenly leapt straight off the page, and punched you in the face. It found its voice, and it was that of a foul mouthed rottweiler, ready to tear limb from limb. Henry, when angered, well, no one wanted that.

Anyway, he'd finished his column for the week. Handed it to his Rebecca. Went out for lunch. He never arranged to meet anyone. Categorically refusing to both eat and talk. Preferring to eat out alone. Everyone else preferred he did too. So much unpleasant slavering, shirt spillages, explosive grunts and derisory laughs as he read through the opposition's papers. His favourite restaurant had a corner reserved specially for him. They screened him off. Where he ate the same lunch every day, steak chips and peas, in a lake of gravy. And without fail there it would be, piping hot, ready for when he'd arrive at midday, on the dot.

He ran his life on this tightly controlled treadmill, and largely on account. Trusting the conscientiousness of his PA to deal with a complex web of monthly payments. Otherwise, lunch might be off, as would his PA. The current one, Rebecca, had worked for him for about a year. A sign of immense skill and tact on her part. Working for Henry Beddington, meant any future job would be a breeze by comparison. Other people respected you instantly, they knew exactly what you'd had to cope with. 

Ditto Patricia Beddington his long suffering and now very ex wife, who'd poured her bruised soul out, delightfully cramming it with colourful anecdotes, to a rival paper. She'd now become an extremely popular TV agony aunt. Dispensing clearly one sided advice, basically of the - all women are terribly good - all men are terribly bad - variety. Henry frequently would regularly feature as an egregious example. About which Henry was privately livid, but publicly affected to be beyond caring. He thought about his revenge all the time. But so far he couldn't quite face the exertion, not to mention expense, of going down the route to litigation. Ever since Oscar Wilde this sort of thing, of defending your bruised ego in court, could so easily backfire. Particularly as his own carefully cultivated abrasive public persona was deliberately meant to rub the liberati up the wrong way, into apoplexy.

His life outside of his writing, had frankly turned into one gigantic tangle of failed or failing relationships. All his disappointments, frustration and anger got siphoned through his columns via the verbal vitriol he dispensed. It was how he processed and resolved issues. By the time he got home after lunch, Rebecca had filtered and sorted his mail out, into Do it Now or They Can Wank For It - piles, anything else passed quickly through vetting and straight into the jaws of a jabbering shredder.  

At the top of the Do It Now was a long handwritten letter from his young wayward, and only son, Chalfont Beddington. In it he was at pains to explain in precise detail to his Father, how he had always felt himself to be really a she, and that she would now quite like Henry to call him Clarrisa from now on. Henry's heart, then jaw dropped, then his temper rose. An expletive ridden response was loudly aired, approximating to - not on your bloody nelly. Until it dawned on him quite how badly all of this might play out once it inevitably hit the tabloids. It was incontrovertibly a bad thing whenever a gossip columnist themselves became the subject of the gossip. 'God, this could be one fuckin feeding frenzy, a five star disaster in a matter of days.'

LISTENING TO - I Came From Love by Dave Okumu & The 7 Generations

 

An album that makes a bold striking statement about the black cultural experience, has a fine pedigree these days from artists as diverse as Kendrick Lamar and Beyonce. Dave Okumu & The 7 Generations album I Came From Love, adds another to that illustrious list. Reflecting on and through a broad kaleidoscopic view of history. Highlighting as it does so the exuberant musical legacy of the black sensibility, as much as the oppression that it often emerged defiantly out of. Surrounded by the monuments to cultural imperialism, in the streets of the towns where you live, as reflected back through the track - Streets.

Dave Okumu, though brought up in Vienna, has lived most of his life in the UK. And this album. I Came from Love, is a long ode to the search for self identity and self knowledge. Sometimes the tracks of ones past heritage get fractured and obscured when you are brought up in a Western culture. Particularly when the UK as a country and culture itself is in such a broken parlous state. Filter yourself through the system that you know - Eyes on Me.

Through the entire length of I Came From Love it has this languorous dystopian feeling, looking backwards and forwards simultaneously for an exodus and a vision for relocation. That sense of brokenness is both, personal, racial, cultural and political. Does anyone have any grasp on who they are collectively any more? The pain of a past of slavery and the pain of still not feeling accepted or valued even now. Using a poem by Amie Cesaire to capture that frustration and anger on My Negritude

Okumu, has a pretty impressive career considering he is not publicly that well known. His songwriting, producing and musical collaborating is extensive, working with Amy Winehouse, St Vincent, Jesse Ware and King Sunny Ade to name but a few.. His first album with The Invisible was Mercury Prize nominated in 2009.  And the imperious voice of Grace Jones features on the opening tracks of I Came From Love - Two Things, and the haunting track - Seven Generations.

What brought me to this album was an appearance by Okumu & The Seven Generations ft Eska of Amnesia on Later with Jules Holland. What hooked me was that metallic fractured string of a guitar sound, which is not on the album track unfortunately. It was a storming performance that gave you a great sense for the diversity and stylish power that this album has.

 

How am I supposed to love a nation with a broken heart?

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

SHOPPING AROUND - And The Husband Walks Away

In retail you are frequently the bystander to a family or relationship dynamic. They stand outside your shop and a wife will be engaging in preliminary and delicate negotiations with her husband about a card/soap/wax melt/lampshade in which he appears to be showing zero to only a cursory level of interest. It can even be an active disinterest to a 'not on your nelly' level. At its very worst he'll show his disapproval simply by walking away, disappearing into the off licence next to us, or completely vanishing from view. And when the Husband silently walks away, is that the ultimate in passive aggressive actions?

There are male partners who do take an active and real interest, obviously. But it has to be said, these can seem quite rare. Though the interest can easily slip into a 'what ever the little woman wants' belittling response. Sometimes the wife has to drop gentle and repeatedly heaver hints, and then the pre-primed husband may return later with 'the credit card' to purchase said item. He'll be on the phone to her trying to establish which one from our range of jewellery it was she wanted. Her description not quite matching what he is seeing. Why they couldn't just come in together to do this is never that clear. Maybe they're trying to conjure up a fiction that this was an entirely spontaneous act on his part.

Who has primary agency over purchasing is noticeable. Its obvious when a woman has agency to buy whatever she likes and when she hasn't. When she has to get her partners approval first. When is it genuinely a joint decision? Who has ultimate control over the purse strings. If it is the wife, then there is a discernable clear air of metculous attention given to money management. If its the husband, there can often be the sense of defensive conservation, from which a begrudging largess is being dispensed. 

Older or poorer couples tend to hold a more old fashioned uneven dynamic over how they manage the family finances. Who has the purchasing power depending on what is being bought. If its about home decor then it is generally a feminine preserve, buying a car largely a masculine one. It is disheartening to see just how gender entrenched and unevenly financial control can be even in modern relationships. Underpinned by the lack of interest in stuff that's habitually considered a feminine or a masculine preserve. The sneery disinterested husband if successfully cornered by his wife, can still, however, press the nuclear option to walk away.

On occasions there is a more open acknowledgement that there are different interests, and that this is largely OK, with an obligatory bit of micky taking. Two women were in the shop recently, one middle aged woman and her Mother. The wife answered her mobile phone, and on the other end is her husband.  I only heard one side of the conversation.

'Where are we? we're in a shop in Sheringham'
.................................................

'Where are you? ........... You're at the railway station still.'

.................................................

'Well, we are going to have a sausage roll or something and then mooch around the shops for a while. You can join us if you want.

.................................................

 You don't want to do that. So what do you want to do ?'

.................................................

'You're going on the train to Holt again?'

The Mother loudly pipes up, in a teasing jocular fashion.

' Well bugger off to Holt then'

I laugh out loud

'Our conversation is causing a bit of hilarity here'

As they leave she turns to say to me.

'He says to tell you he's really going to enjoy buggering off to Holt'

GNOSTIC OPTICS - Truth In Words & Pictures

'Truth does not come into the world
without robes
it enters through words and pictures.
Truth cannot be received by the world
in any other way.'

Taken from The Gospel of Phillip
Translated by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd 2006

FAVE RAVE - Ancient Egypt by Train

I can watch anything with Professor Alice Roberts in. She is simply one of the best TV presenters of historical and archeological programmes. Here she is following in the path of Amelia Edwards, who founded the Egypt Exploration Society. Supporting the pioneering work of Flinders Petrie in the development of modern archeological excavation methods. Alice follows her account of an early visit to Egypt, that inspired her life's work to discover and preserve that countries past.

Egypt is a place I visited in the late 1980's, fulfilling a long held lifetimes ambition.  So a lot of what is featured in these four episodes is not unfamiliar to me. But much of it is also new, as she frequently ventures off the beaten path of Ancient Egyptian tourism sites. This is also the first documentary I've seen that uses the Egyptian train system to get around, as it follows the Nile in parallel down to Aswan. Often a freewheeling backpackers way to see the country.

Her researchers have sourced plenty of female Egyptologists from Egypt itself, and experts from the locale and sites they are visiting. Rather than taking the lazy route and going for the usual sources for information, such as Salima Ikram, who is excellent, but she is becoming a bit ubiquitous. But best of all there was not even a peak of Zahi Hawass, the disgraced former head of Egyptian Antiquities. This corrupt self publicist too often thrusts his unpleasant personality into far too many programmes. So these four episodes get big thumbs up from me, on that basis alone. Ancient Egypt by Train manages to find fresh things to say and fresh ways of presenting, what is very familiar subject matter.

MY OWN WALKING - June Journal 2023

Have you ever been with a group of men, who are having an absolutely uproarious time, lots of jokes and raucous banter flying around, multiple conversations loudly overlapping each other? However, you are in the middle of it, and you are trying to talk to them about your week and how you've been. Finding it hard to hear yourself speak, let alone be heard. You get the feeling that no one is really wanting to listen. 

Though all this male bonding over the sharing of ribaldry, well, it might have the appearance of friendship, but is it largely hollow, a bogus bonhomie? One has the sense that there is always an unspoken fear in any gathering of men - the fear of being publicly ridiculed were you to go deeper in the revealing of yourself. So, let's keep this light shall we?

This is not the first time I've experienced a feeling of being ignored or isolated in the presence of other men, unable to join in, stuck on the periphery, as though I were a bystander on the outside looking in. Left to watch this whole masculine performance going on before me like some bizzare charade. I find these sort of situations disheartening for myself, and for those men too.

It's a bit of a cliche these days to talk of masculine friendships being formed through the sharing of an experience or enthusiasm, of working alongside on a practical task with other men. And though I can see that this can be the case, it is, as a friendship strategy, a weak one to put too much reliance on. The likelihood of finding such a situation, and it working, well that is rare. The possibilities are limited. The lack of these circumstances maybe one reason why there is a decline in male friendship more generally. Are men becoming more isolated from other men? Do they find it more difficult to find and be within collective or communal activities? Or is that just me? Perhaps the more 'friendships' exist via social media the less easy it becomes to deal with real relationships in real time.

I've heard some men say they've found relationships with women were becoming too difficult, so they'd simply decided to just not go there. To give up on it. My experience of many heterosexual men is that when they talk about their relationships they often sound emotionally under resourced. Women, on an emotional level, are able to run rings around them. Men then find themselves in situations they either don't understand, don't know how to handle, how to defend their own corner, how to get themselves out of, or feel they're being manipulated by. The more complicated their emotional landscape becomes the more lost they are. 

I can understand why the message of those dodgy 'men's liberator' gurus like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson appeal. Because they give the appearance of 'offering' a clear way of responding from strength, not weakness  - with masculine over assertion, aggression, belittling ,denigration, dismissal and domination towards women. In truth what they are 'offering' is absolutely nothing new. Just proffering a sly slippery deceit to the young, naive or bewildered man. It reaffirms existing, albeit limited, masculine skill sets - that a man who feels powerless in a relationship can in the end always resort to - Coercive Anger. This being the one emotion men are well versed in the use of. There is little or no emotional, let alone relational, intelligence here. This too is quite sad to say.

Myself? Well, I can find anger a difficult emotion to be with, whether within myself or in others. With myself I try to contain it,whilst I try to calm myself down a bit. But containing, I find, can quickly and deceptively degrade into avoidance or denial of it. The failure to acknowledge, respond or give voice to any emotion becomes an act of self harm, a form of self betrayal. 

If I am with, or near, someone who feels threatening, or is angry with me, I become emotionally paralysed. I don't know quite what to do, fearful of saying the wrong thing and hence making the anger worse, or even responding from my own rising anger. No longer in contact with how I feel. I take emotional retreat into a befuddled silence, with the consequent loss of initiative and self assertion. A position from which I can find it difficult to extricate myself, particularly whilst the sense or threat of the anger is still present. 

At that point I'm a bit like an armadillo curled up in an automatic defensive position. All my emotional resourcefulness, is trapped like wind or deserts me until I can feel safe, unwind and fart. Whilst I understand where this response may come from ( Being bullied as a young man ) I do wish I could move on from protective over reaction and find a space I can be more open and creative within. 'Locked Out' from a group or 'Locked In' with myself, seem linked, to me, as responses. Both deny full presence in a specific moment or situation, and, paradoxically, the opportunity for deepening relationships.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1978 - She Is Beyond Good & Evil by The Pop Group

Barely at times a band, let alone a pop group. The song She Is Beyond Good & Evil has a shambolic slack quality to it, as though something monstrous is forming right before your eyes, made up on the spare of the moment. Huge success evaded them, or more likely was unconsciously evaded by there own instinctive actions. The Pop Group were formed in Bristol by the late Mark Stewart in 1977. Like many post punk bands they picked eclectically from a wide range of musical influences and sources - dub, free form jazz, avante funk and welded themselves this massive yet fragile sound, always teetering on the edge of falling completely apart. Unsurprisingly none of their output even brushed the outer edges of any national chart. Because this may be pop, but with a disconcerting integrity and menacing grist.

They did, however, prove hugely influential and an inspiration on countless bands, Nick Cave for one being deeply impressed with their uncompromising bravado, how they stuck to their guns. Former band members went on to form Pigbag (Simon Underwood)and Rip Rig & Panic (Gareth Sager). The latter's stylistic borrowings from The Pop Group taken one step further into almost a stream of consciousness type of free improvisations. 

The Pop Group set the template for what any post punk band should be. Punk had all too quickly fossilised into a formulaic genre. Post Punk, picked up and carried the anarchic flag forward, furiously uncompromising, musically adventures, independently minded, strident in the politics they espoused, highly critical of society and contemporary culture. The Pop Group's first iteration from 1977-1981 produced two albums and three singles. They reformed in 2010 and were still active up until Stewart's untimely demise, producing two more albums and four singles.

She Is Beyond Good & Evil, is a quintessential track by The Pop Group from their first period of activity. The snappy dub infused snare drum, rumble bass and choppy funk guitar, over which Mark Stewart moans, intones and decries with an atypical discomforting intensity. Was this man entirely sane?  Accompanied by a video composed of filmed live performances, which at times may or may not be of them performing this song. Its representative of their visual style, all cut up and collage like, sound and visuals out of sync, with a super 8 type unfocused quality, rough hewn,fuzzy edged imagery. It makes a suitable companion as an extension of the music's own improvised haphazardly thrown together modus operandi.

CAVE NOTES - Bombs of Truth

'Songs have the capacity to be revealing, 
acutely so.
There is much they can teach us about ourselves.
They are little dangerous bombs of truth'

Taken from Faith, Hope and Carnage
a series of conversations between Nick Cave and Sean O'Hagan
Published by Canongate 2023

LISTENING TO - The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte by Sparks

There are not many bands who make it as far as their 26th album. Either imploding under the weight of drug use, creative exhaustion or shattering into self recriminating pieces well before they reach their 5th release. And the twenty six does not include any 'best of' or greatest hits compilations, its just individual studio albums. So by the time you reach your 26th - The Girl is Crying in Her Latte - what have you got left to say, that you haven't already said a thousand times? You could be forgiven for thinking it would be variations on the same old same old. Whilst themes do reoccur they are usually dressed in new guises, there is precious little about this album that doesn't come across as fresh and as innovative as any debut.

What is impressive about The Girl is Crying in Her Latte is the sheer breadth of the songwriting. Encompassing existential loneliness, The wartime influence of Veronica Lake, being love struck on an escalator, the authoritarian prowess of Kim Jong Un as a dance DJ, not to mention the obligatory Sparks theme of male insecurity, and a person who is so unimpressive no one knows who they are  - as on Not That Well Defined.

.

Musically they've used instrumentation so sparingly. A prime example being Escalator, an ode of love by a man who everyday sees a woman he fancies on the escalator. Its such a beautifully simple electronic composition of blips, chords and burps. Reminding me of early work by German electronic pioneers from the 70's like Harmonia or Hans Joachim Reodelius. Filled with a plaintive catchy minimalism. 

There is always a least one song on any of the more recent Sparks album that is really out there pushing the envelope on a sonic level. On this its We Go Dancing with its authoritarian march mixed with trumpets, tympani and dance strut. Its a political lampoon, with a more underlying serious intent than you normally get from Sparks. We've not seen its like since Baby Let Me Invade Your Country.  The duality of sending up and poignant statement about the world or human condition is perhaps the most distinguishing feature of note with this album. Its been present occasionally previously, but never quite so marked and consistently as here.

Lyrically, as one has come to expect of a songwriter as experienced as Ron Mael, there is plenty to appreciate with incredulity and sheer delight filled wonder. Able to use the most banal turn of phrase and make it poignant or fill it with greater meaning simply through repetition. Such as on Escalator and the song that closes the album Gee, That was Fun.

The band that has proven time and again never to write them off. And among so many great era defining albums, its impossible really to rank the best ones. The Girl is Crying in Her Latte does however have classic Sparks written all over every single groove of it.

CARROT REVIEW - 8/8

FILM CLUB - A Canterbury Tale

The Powell & Pressburger Season -1944

In the middle of their golden era Powell and Pressburger made A Canterbury Tale. Their first considerable flop at the time of release, it appeared to misfire with the needs of its time. It wasn't until the 1970's when the entire corpus of their films was reevaluated, that it gained new fans, and its value was reclaimed. It is, however, still a distinct oddity in Powell and Pressburger's work, and that eccentricity was partly what their contemporary audience found difficult to contend with. Its mystic opacity remaining with it to this day.

It opens with a voice over, reading from Chaucer, as you see a visual representation of the pilgrimage in Chaucer's Canterbury Tale. And this is transformed into 1940's England by a fabulous piece of visual metamorphosis, where a mediaeval swooping hawk turns into a wartime spitfire descending from the sky and sweeping its way across the landscape. Three people , an American soldier (John Sweet ), a land girl (Sylvia Sim) and an English officer ( Dennis Price ) are all on their way towards Canterbury, but are a waylaid in idyllic Chillingbourne overnight. Whilst following the darkened path into town the land girl is attacked by an unidentified person in uniform, referred to by the locals as 'the glueman'. The remainder of the film is pegged on their search to discover who 'the glueman' actually is.

The film is much more than an empty headed who dunnit. It attempts to evoke what the spiritual heart of England is. Who 'the glueman' turns out to be, well its Thomas Colpeper ( Eric Portman ) the evidence certainly points towards him. Colpeper is a dark character, not particularly likeable, patronising and self assured. A local aristocrat, who has made himself into a guardian of the areas spirit, the relayer of its history and myths. Giving inspirational lectures in darkened public venues, to often poor attendance. But the subject he talks about in this slide show is a soliloquy tinged with romantic sentiment, for both a lost vision and the thwarted destiny or purpose of a nation. There are things he believes that are 'the glue' that holds us all together, not just in times of war. Those unspoken values, more felt than rational, represent its collective soul, the best there is of England.  Reconnected with these, the servicemen know, in their hearts at least, what they are fighting for. We first see Colpeper emerging from out of a field of wheat. There is something of the Magus or trickster about him. He is niether of this world or that pleasant.

Filmed by the cinematographer Erwin Hillier it was shot in black and white in one gloriously hot sultry summer in 1943. Hillier apparently was so in love with clouds, he wouldn't film if there was a beautifully clear blue sky. The air of an idyll, soft in focus and mist covered landscapes is due to the quality of his camera work. The romanticised gloss that permeates the film, visually and textually, can make it slightly harder to wholeheartedly digest.  Particularly for modern day more cynical, if not satirically minded audiences, who read such visionary idealism as naive and misguided. In this A Canterbury Tale is very much of its particular time and context. 

If you can get past that discomfort, there is in this film a simple, heartfelt, and at times almost rhapsodic message. Characters often stopping in mid sentence to stare in rapture at the sky, speaking evocatively about what they are seeing or feeling. And what they are touched by, is a mystical sense of the past being alive in the present. The land girl confesses to Colpeper that she could actually hear for one brief moment, the pilgrims voices as they traversed the ridgeway on their journey to Canterbury.

All our three characters have interrupted journeys, in life, love or career, each broken in some way by the war.  They do eventually see Canterbury, and once there, there is some reopening of their horizons, a renewal of faith, a glimpse of a better future, once the war has been won. 

Colpeper disappears at the end, vanishing as though his job has been done, returning to the earth from which he came. One can see why audiences might find, today as then, its themes and style a bit hard to fathom, let alone swallow. But this might be a film that could reveal greater depths on repeated viewing, more than even I might expect. Nothing here is quite as its first seems.

CARROT REVIEW - 5/8

PEACEFUL PROTEST - Slogan No 8

 Apparently........

Peaceful
Protest
Praised
For
Being
Really
Soft
Cuddly
And
Lovable