The Antonine Itineraries

Lanterns on the Lake

2012-01-28T15:07:00.004Z

So much of my free time has been taken up finishing my new book that I have little time for anything else. That work is almost done, so posts should increase soon. Earlier this month I ventured into darkest Hoxton to see Lanterns on the Lake at Cargo, underneath the arches. Venue extremely full, so I stood at the side of the stage and had a very enjoyable experience. Surely, the most reverential and silent crowd I have witnessed in decades. I'm always complaining about how you can barely hear the music over the sound of chattering punters these days, but in this instance silence reigned, until about half-way through someone shouted out, 'What a band, what a fucking band!' There's some bowed guitar a la Sigur Ros and a definite resemblance to Mazzy Star at times, but the soundworld they create is enticing and hypnotic. Read a review here.

Those records of the year in full

2011-12-23T10:09:00.004Z

As the amount of new music I have time and inclination to listen to continues to dwindle I haven't got a lot to recommend for this year, but I did like:

Huntsville For Flowers, Cars and Merry Wars (Norwegian Krautrock, if you know what I mean)with guest vocals from the lovely Hanne Hukkelberg whose 2008 release Blood From a Stone I can heartily recommend.

Wire Red Barked Tree - as good as their first two 'comeback' records in the 1980s.

The Robert Mitchell 3io (yes I know it's a crap name) The Embrace - jazz interpretations of an eclectic selection of modern songs by the likes of Aphex Twin and Little Dragon - much better than similar efforts by The Bad Plus.

A perfect one to write to, although it didn't come out this year, but I was given it in 2011, is Inlandish by Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Tim Story: very reminiscent of Harold Budd's Eno collaborations with bits of Boards of Canada floating in and out and fragments of other Eno ambient classics such as On Land. Only with the recent re-release of a lot of the Cluster material can it be now be proved how much Eno 'borrowed' from these progenitors of ambient.

Count Stenbock

2011-12-11T19:51:00.004Z

Looking forward to 2012, one book I am eagerly awaiting is the Collected Works of Eric Count Stenbock to be published by David Tibet's Coptic Cat next summer.

The pre-publication website can be found here.

A section of my Decadent London book was devoted to this eccentric and fascinating character. Up to now most of my reading of his work has had to be conducted in the Rare Books area of the British Library - it will be great to see his work made more generally available.

Alan Moore

2011-12-05T13:08:00.003Z

A great interview with comics genius Alan Moore - in three parts - whenever he talks I find myself agreeing with almost everything he says, an example below:

'Taking responsibility for something is generally a good way of gaining some measure of control over it. That’s certainly true when it comes to one’s own life. You take responsibility for it and all of a sudden you have control over it. And I think it extends to other things as well. If we take responsibility for the way we’re governed and the way that we’re ruled economically and the way that the Anonymous and Occupy protesters seem to be doing, then that potentially can have a huge world-changing effect. That’s the same whether you’re talking about politics or whether you’re talking about the arts. If I hadn’t believed that it would be possible for me to have some sort of effect then I’d never have tried. As it turns out, my ideas have been communicated to a fair number of people. But back at the beginning, that was far from obvious. All that you had was your own belief in yourself. So yes, it’s vital that individuals believe that they can have an impact upon society. For one thing, it’s historically true. For another thing, it is the best thing to believe because if you believe otherwise that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is the philosophy of a natural-born slave in many respects.'

Philosophytown on the radio

2011-11-20T17:30:00.004Z

So much time is being spent finishing my next book - it should be done by Christmas - that I can only post sporadically here at the moment.

On Friday morning there was an interesting programme on Radio 4 about the Malmesbury Philosophytown Festival that I spoke at last month. You can listen again here for a week.

Fu Manchu infiltrates Radio 2

2011-11-04T10:33:00.004Z

I shall probably be appearing on Friday Night is Music Night tonight (4th November) on Radio 2, filling the interval space when the audience at home gets up to make a cup of tea. Yesterday I was interviewed on location in Limehouse by a lovely chap called Neil Rosser about Sax Rohmer and Fu Manchu. Hopefully, if he's managed to edit it by tomorrow evening, it will be broadcast to the nation. Particulary good was standing on the foreshore at Limehouse Reach talking about the 'Devil Doctor'.

A talk on The Cult of Ku at Treadwell's bookshop next Thursday is also of relevance.

Catching Up

2011-10-28T17:45:00.000+01:00

Time to catch up somewhat. Short holiday.

Yesterday at 12.30 I was standing on top of Mount Snowdon. We had to take the (very expensive) train as it would have been a difficult walk with my three-year-old son.

Also paid a visit to Porthmeirion - costs £9.00 if you go before 15.30 - we went later when it's half price. I'd never been before. The money has probably gone towards sprucing it up - my wife said it was looking shabby when she was last there 20 years ago. Memories of The Prisoner were unavoidable - I'd like to see the early episodes again, but I think it became unwatchable towards the end.

The National Slate Museum at Llanberis is more interesting than it may sound. A short stay in Manchester to see the Ford Madox Brown exhibition and the murals in the incredible Town Hall, designed by Waterhouse.

In Liverpool I visited some old haunts, the magnificent Philharmonic and atmospheric Ye Cracke pubs and for the first time went to the Ship and Mitre, nearest equivalent to a comprehensive Belgian pub I have found in England - massive selection of beers.

The Philosophy Town talk the previous week went well - a thoroughly worthwhile venture I think. I particularly enjoyed 'How to be an Existentialist' by Gary Cox, a talk that briefly explained a philosophy I had been wrestling with in a very difficult book earlier this year.

Rogue Male

2011-10-04T17:18:00.004+01:00

One of the strangest news stories to catch my eye this week concerns the Queen obsessive who constructed a hide on an island in St James's Park so as to constantly have Buckingham Palace in his sights; his desiccated bones have only just been discovered. Coincidentally I have been reading some old obituaries of John Symonds, one of the literary executors of Aleister Crowley. In 1966 he wrote the novel 'With a View of the Palace' 'about a man obsessed with the Royal Family who spies on King George V from the lavatory of his flat overlooking Buckingham Palace.'

Philosophytown

2011-09-20T16:54:00.005+01:00

It appears that I am going to be speaking at the Philosophytown Festival in Malmesbury after all.

If you happen to be in that delightful edge-of-the-Cotswolds town on the morning of Sunday 16th October at 9.30 (!) then you can come and hear me talk about the history of the London coffee house with added contribution about Joseph Addison from the festival organiser Michael Cuthbert.

The full programme is here.

Addison helped set up his wife's former servant Daniel Button in an eponymous coffee house in Russell St Covent Garden, just a few doors down from where Johnson and Boswell would meet many years later. He also visited coffee houses to get material for The Spectator.

Much more can be found in my book London's Coffee Houses. A short extract below:

'Some of the flavour of debate in London coffee houses is captured in Joseph Addison’s account of his visit, during the course of a day, to a variety of popular establishments, where he hoped to determine public opinion regarding a (false) rumour of the death of the king of France that was spreading across the capital. He started at the St James’s coffee house where,

“I found the whole outward Room in a Buzz of Politics. The Speculations were but very indifferent towards the Door, but grew finer as you advanced to the upper end of the Room, and were so very much improved by a Knot of Theorists, who sat in the inner room, within the Steams of the Coffee Pot, that I there heard the whole Spanish monarchy disposed of, and all the line of Bourbon provided for in less than a Quarter of an Hour.” '

Folkestone Triennial

2011-09-05T19:40:00.008+01:00

Last week we camped for a couple of days at Little Switzerland just outside Folkestone. The weather and light conditions were such that France seemed a short swim away - see my photo above including the artwork Out of Tune by A K Dolven, a suspended bell on the shore that could be rung; although when we went to make it chime in the evening it was 'closed' - presumably so that people living nearby aren't kept up at night.

We were there on an Art Trip to investigate the Folkestone Triennial and nearby towns. Favourite works: Huw Locke's suspended model boats in the church, Cornelia Parker's Mermaid (my photo above), Towards the Sound of Wilderness where Cristina Iglesias created a window onto an almost unrecognisable Martello Tower completely covered in vegetation, and a video installation in a Masonic Hall by Olivia Plender, although the setting was more impressive than the work - Martin Creed's 'soundwork' in the Leas lift wasn't working. Tried to get into the GHost House (not officially on the list) but it was closed.

Also went to the Turner Gallery in Margate - impressive building but the acres of space inside had very little to fill them - the work that impressed me most was by Russell Crotty, a series of globes, maps, documents and starcharts. Hastings' own contribution to hopelessly optimistic 'regeneration through art', the Jerwood Gallery, has announced that as works are running a little behind schedule it will not be opening this summer - too late anyway - but next summer instead - not a good sign. Again, however good the building, is there any interesting art to put in it? I feel it should have been placed somewhere in the New Town - there's plenty of empty shops and a warehouse-like empty newspaper office - rather than in the already crowded area at the beach end of the Old Town.

Another interesting place was Morelli's ice cream parlour and cafe in Broadstairs - apparently pretty much unchanged since the 1950s.

Horse on the House

2011-09-05T19:33:00.004+01:00

I've been painting the front of our house over the summer - finished in August and it looks wonderful. When we returned from our holidays this magnificent beast had appeared on one of the walls - I don't intend to paint over it. It's probably the work of an artist who has left animal stencil pictures around the town.

Underground Magic

2011-08-23T19:10:00.004+01:00

Recently read 'Grimoires' by Owen Davies on the history of supposedly magical books. I found one passage of particular interest which I quote below. Hope the publishers won't mind - I do heartily recommend it as an academic study of a fascinating subject. It concerns the study of the 'Black Arts and Magic' in underground locations, in this case beneath Toledo [see pages 27-28]:

“…Italian monk Francesco Maria Guazzo, writing in the seventeenth century, recounted the cautionary tale legend of the friar and physician Blessed Giles (d.1265) of Santarém, Portugal. This vice-ridden scion of a rich family, while on his way to study at Paris, fell in with a demon in human disguise who persuaded him to visit a vast cavern in Toledo. Here he met demons and their worshippers and signed a pact with the Devil. For the next seven years he ‘deeply studied the Black Arts and Magic’ before eventually seeing the error of his ways. The legend of a cave in Toledo where magic had been practised for centuries, and where a powerful grimoire lay hidden, seems to have developed in the medieval period. One of the stories written by Don Juan Manuel, a fourteenth-century Spanish nobleman from the province of Toledo, who unusually becomes a pupil of a great magician of Toledo called don Yllán who has an underground library and workshop. The deacon eventually becomes Pope and ungratefully threatens to imprison his old master for practising sorcery.

The Toledo legend was developed and given further legitimacy in the seventeenth century by the historian Christóbal Lozano. He wrote a fantastical account of how during the Roman period there existed under the city a vast subterranean palace of Hercules where magic was studied and practised. This occult underground world collapsed and for centuries lay buried until, according to Lozano’s take on history, in 1543 the Archbishop of Toledo organized an excavation and found an altar decorated with bronze statues. A loud noise was heard when they entered and some of the party died of fright. The archbishop ordered that the entrance be sealed once more to prevent its evil manifestations from spreading. One source of the legend is the archaeological remnants of a short subterranean passage flanked by two Roman columns, which was probably intended to act as nothing more magical than a sewer or drain. Similar stories circulated regarding the city of Salamanca, where the second oldest university in Spain was founded in 1218. The earliest reference to a cave-school of magic there is from a French chronicle from the mid-fifteenth century. It is clear that Salamanca, by now considered the major centre of learning, was mistakenly or deliberately associated with the old Toledo legend. It proved enduring. The Jesuit theologian Martín del Rio (1558-1608), who studied at the university wrote,

‘I have read that, as a result of the Moorish occupation of Spain, the magical arts were virtually the only subjects being taught in Toledo, Seville and Salamanca. When I was living in Salamanca, I was shown a secret vault which had been blocked off with rubble on the orders of Queen Isabella. It was a place where forbidden knowledge was taught.’”

Back home

2011-08-21T22:11:00.004+01:00

Returned from hols - missed the summer riots while sitting on a beach at Saundersfoot. On our way home we stopped off at Laugharne to visit Dylan Thomas's grave, boathouse and writing shed - lovely place that hosts a small but impressive literary festival.

On the way to Pembroke we stayed at Monmouth: a lot of Georgian buildings and a much better town than you probably think it's going to be. Also Malmesbury, which is branding itself The Town of Philosophy and has recently started hosting a 'philosophy festival' - I was supposed to be talking there about coffee houses in October, but nothing seems to have come of it. Beautiful place with a very pretty Abbey, also home to William of Malmesbury, flying monk Eilmer and King Athelstan.

I'm now working on two books - one hopefully to come out next year and one in 2013 to coincide with an important literary anniversary - hence the fewer posts here. The second will hopefully be a collaborative work with the possibility of some big names getting involved, but until they have committed I don't want to get too excited or reveal anything more.

The Museum of British Folklore

2011-08-02T18:00:00.006+01:00

Through one of the other blogs I subscribe to I've just found out about the Museum of British Folklore, set up by Simon Costin, a designer and collaborator with the late Alexander McQueen, who apparently regularly takes part in Hastings Jack-in-the-Green festival. It sounds like a worthy venture. By the usual strange coincidences he is planning an exhibition on witchcraft in Britain in the 1950s called Dark Britannica. Here's the text from their Facebook page:

"In 2011 it will be 60 years since the 1735 Witchcraft Act was repealed in Britain. To coincide with this the Museum of British Folklore is to mount an exhibition in central London, which examines a very particular time in British history. In 1951, while London hosted the forward-looking Festival of Britain exhibition on the South Bank, the Witchcraft Act was repealed with the enactment of the Fraudulent Mediums Act.

Dark Britannica looks at the history of Witchcraft in the UK and at the host of colorful characters who were later to take centre stage in Britain's growing interest with Witchcraft and the Occult from the 50’s onwards. It was a time of 'Witch Wars', involving court cases, dramatic newspaper exposure and quite a lot of self-publicity for some people. Out of this grew an increase in public interest and a certain amount of misinformation as well as much learned and genuine exploration of the subject of Witchcraft.

Using film footage, press reports, artifacts and archival letters, Dark Britannica seeks to celebrate those who were to be the founders of the modern Neo Pagan movement and asks, is Witchcraft the only religion that Britain has given the world?"

Another excuse for a witchcraft pic.

I should also mention the recent release by the BFI of Here's a Health to the Barley Mow, a 2 dvd compilation of British custom and folklore films which sounds absolutely fascinating. There's also an insightful piece by Philip Hoare (who wrote an interesting Decadence-related book called Salome's Last Dance) in this month's Sight and Sound which can be read here.

Bexhill Beano

2011-08-02T15:07:00.007+01:00

Been to Bexhill-on-Sea for a couple of events recently: Mogwai at the De La Warr Pavilion - satisfyingly noisy, especially the encore; and a wedding in the lovely church of St Peter's at the heart of the Old Town. Bexhill is not a particularly interesting or exciting place, but I was reminded, when walking around the Old Town, that Alex Sanders 'King of the Witches' lived in Chantry Cottage. The house came up for sale shortly after we moved down here - I have a feeling that the advert in the local paper even mentioned that he had lived there. I first encountered his name in the excellent long-defunct journal Rapid Eye; I also have a paperback by June Johns called King of the Witches. The dvd Legend of the Witches, Their Secret Rituals Revealed is also worth a watch, as I seem to recall that he features in it.

Lost Lyons

2011-07-22T14:15:00.005+01:00

Walking along Piccadilly at lunchtime today I was shocked to see a huge gap surrounded by hoardings where an attractive group of Victorian buildings once stood - the whole block down to Jermyn Street has gone; the shops had been shut for some time but I thought they were going to be refurbished, not totally demolished. The alleyway on the west side was very atmospheric, with its old-fashioned tocacconist and newsagent. The most significant loss is the building at No.213 which was once the very first Lyons teashop - see my books London's Coffee Houses and Decadent London - it opened on 20 September 1894. The distinctive fascia has been long gone, but it's a shame nevertheless that another piece of London's past has vanished.

On a similar note, Phil Baker tells me that No.124 Victoria Street, formerly the temple and headquarters of Aleister Crowley's A.A. Order is also about to disappear - I must get down there to take a photo before it's too late.

Underground Rumblings

2011-07-16T15:11:00.002+01:00

The July issue of Modern Railways has a very useful supplement on Crossrail with maps and computer-generated images of the finished stations - still in the shops.

Plans for HS2 are not being universally welcomed. Proposals to dig a tunnel at a depth of 30-35 metres beneath parts of north Westminster have met some opposition from local residents. Recently the Stop the Tunnel North Westminster action group protested outside City Hall against the potential disruption works would cause in the area, noise from the tunnel and the plan to build a huge ventilation shaft in Queen's Park. Personally, I'm not sure that the expense, disruption and journey time saved will be worth it - isn't 1 hour 20 minutes a fast enough time to get from Euston to Birmingham? The case against is put here.

Handcarved Coffins

2011-07-01T17:27:00.006+01:00

I recently read a fascinating interview with Marlon Brando from the New Yorker written by Truman Capote. Highly impressed by this piece of work I realised that I'd never read any of Capote's books, despite having seen the films of Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood and enjoyed the Philip Seymour Hoffman biopic (I'd also like to see Infamous, which is highly rated -you wait years for a Truman Capote biopic and two come along at once).

While I've never studied the 'craft' of writing (obviously, you may say) I think I can recognise a great piece of writing when I read it; fortunately someone more qualified in this department has explained some of the reasons why the Brando interview is so good. On the train into London last night I finished Music for Chameleons, the centrepiece of which is 'Handcarved Coffins: a non-fiction account of an American crime' - another terrific read, beautifully constructed, but clearly containing many fictional elements and unlikely coincidences. Just how non-fictional it really is can be found here - Capote was branded a hoaxer as a result. There have been a spate of 'non-fiction' works found to be mostly fiction in recent years - Dan Brown's claims that The Da Vinci Code was based on fact always annoyed me.

Another book I reread this year was Fiesta/The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemingway - I was perfectly prepared to think it was going to be disappointing, having been very impressed with it as a young man at university. In fact, this time I thought it was even better than I remembered, very vividly written and evocative of the parts of France and Spain in which much of the book is set. What a pity his later work fell off dramatically - Across the River and into the Trees I found especially poor. If, as a drinking game, you tried to keep up with the amount of alcohol consumed in the course of that book you would be dead well before it ends.

Museum Piece

2011-06-29T13:03:00.009+01:00

Thanks to AbeBooks I've just read Museum Piece by James Laver, mentioned in an earlier post. He seems to have enjoyed an extraordinarily fortunate life, combining work as a poet, novelist and screenwriter, together with writing a number of books on fashion, biographies of Whistler, Tissot and Huysmans while holding down a job as keeper of the department of engraving, illustration, design and painting at the V &A. He got his job there without having any qualifications in art history - but then again, he did go to Oxford. As he says of his time there: "Certainly at Oxford one soon learned to distinguish the types: the earnest, carefully-courteous Wykhamists, the elegant Etonians, the noisy Carthusians and Rugbeians, the frank Philistines from Fettes and similar schools" [p.60] - plus ca change.

Unfortunately in 1926, "the busy but agreeable life I had been leading was suddenly interrupted by the General Strike". Despite the fact that he was, in his opinion, "an utterly unpolitical animal" he volunteered as a special constable: "If there were going to be barricades, I knew that I wanted to be on the side of Law and Order". He was, however, "a little disconcerted" by the "strange collection of Black-and-Tans and proto-Fascists who had flocked together for the saving of Society" [p.126].

He seems to have been a reasonably decent chap, but the book is pretty much a litany of name dropping - for example, he met Cole Porter when his successful novel Nymph Errant was turned into a musical; in his studio the songwriter "picked out the tunes [on the piano] which I thus heard for the first time, and which were afterwards to become famous". As is often the case, though many of the names dropped are impressive, he has little of any interest or insight to report. He says nothing about why he felt impelled to write a biography of Huysmans, which is disappointing.

One incident in particular stretches credulity. Laver is drinking in a Munich beer hall in the twenties when suddenly, "the music was interrupted by a little man with a falling lock and a toothbrush moustache who jumped on a table and began a speech denouncing the Jews. If only I had known - I would have stayed and listened."

A particularly indulgent chapter is devoted to his taste in fine wines and exquisite foods, including the menus for some of the more sybaritic examples. He does, however, mention that he was present at a number of banquets held by the Corvine Society presided over by Rolfe's biographer A J A Symons [pp.165-168, see earlier post] where, "around the room were displayed the original manuscripts of Corvo's books in his extraordinary Elizabethan script"; the whole lavish event was funded by Maundy Gregory, an equally colourful figure in his day who was probably a murderer.

He developed a massive interest in the occult and even travelled to Hastings to meet Aleister Crowley after having received an invitation - AC had enjoyed Laver's biography of Nostradamus. Laver's conclusion: "That he was a blackmailer is, I think, more than likely; that he was a fraud is certain. But was he nothing but a fraud?" Museum Piece was published in 1963 - would any mainstream publisher bring it out today? Laver died in a fire at his Blackheath home in 1975.

Bill Bruford

2011-06-25T10:50:00.006+01:00

78 people showed up for the Bill Bruford talk last Friday evening - the joint was packed, as they say - afterwards he sold a fair number of books. The talk itself was very absorbing, covering some of the historical and economic reasons for the development of a music 'industry' and 'business' and the ways in which technology has influenced the production, distribution and consumption of music; he also threw in some amusing anecdotes involving Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, Dire Straits and Coldplay.

The questions produced some stimulating responses - surprisingly (you might think) the most technical inquiries about drumming came from women in the audience and there was much talk of playing in unorthodox time signatures and different ways to hold a drumstick. It was encouraging to see a few young people in the crowd - two walked away afterwards carrying a drum head that he had signed, it also bore the signature of Steve Gadd.

I read his autobiography this week and it's certainly the most intelligent and thougtful I've seen written by a former 'rock' musician; there are even footnotes quoting music theorists and sociologists such as Chris Cutler and Simon Frith. As he said in response to an inquiry on Friday he 'doesn't do dirt', so you won't find any stories about snorting cocaine off Rolls Royces in swimming pools or debauched hotel shenanigans with groupies. Similarly, the ineffable mystery of Robert Fripp remains intact, despite some interesting insights. I think anyone considering a career as a musician should read it - it also offered some wisdom that I can apply to my own meagre creative endeavours. After the talk he spent a long time signing books and answering more questions including my own about the recording of 'Starless' on the influential Red lp by King Crimson (one of Kurt Cobain's favourites apparently). What a gentleman.

Birkbeck matters

2011-06-10T13:44:00.004+01:00

I've only just found out about the death earlier this year of Barry Coward, eminent historian and one of my tutors on the Early Modern History MA at Birkbeck that I took around ten years ago. He came across as a genuinely nice and decent man, helpful and encouraging; he also wrote some important books on Early Modern English history. Obituary here and tributes here.

One of my other tutors Mike Berlin is organising an exhibition about the Partisan coffee house in 1950s Soho; it will take place in 2012, can't find the location yet. I wonder if he realises that the author of London's Coffee Houses was one of his students, although at that time it was Professor Michael Hunter who excited my interest in that direction through his seminars on Early Modern thought and belief.

Ida Kar and The Farm

2011-06-04T13:48:00.016+01:00

Paid a visit to the Ida Kar exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery today. Worth seeing if you are interested in the artistic, literary and bohemian milieu of London in the 1950s and 1960s, as I am. One photograph in particular caught my eye - the caption referring to a coffee house I hadn't heard of before: The Farm at 14 Monmouth Street, run by Brian Robins (1928-1988) and his wife Susan.

When Brian Robins met Ida Kar and her husband Victor Musgrave he was apparently working as the last lamplighter in London; he was also a self-taught sculptor, who later became known for his kinetic sculptures. According to the catalogue (NPG No.68) The Farm was a short-lived coffee shop in the basement "which became a meeting-place for young artists and poets after the couple opened it on 23 June 1959. As well as selling coffee, its aim, according to Robins, ‘was to show works which the commercial galleries would not show…I felt that art freed from the purse strings would give it more scope and personality.’ Robins showed work by Gustav Metzger, Roger Mitchell and Susan Bryan. The last exhibit before the closure of The Farm in May 1960 was Robins’ painting machine, which produced a picture every twenty minutes.’"

Robins also helped Metzger publish the first manifesto of Auto-Destructive Art dated 4 November 1959 in which it was stated that, ‘Auto-destructive paintings, sculptures and constructions have a lifetime varying from a few moments to twenty years. When the disintegrating process is complete the work is to be removed from the site and scrapped.’

From 9-30 November 1959 Metzger exhibited 'Cardboards' a series of 'pictures’ made from cardboard boxes; he was interviewed by the Daily Express which published a story the next day with the headline, ‘Bearded man trips over a box and finds a new form of art…IT’S PICTURES FROM PACKING CASES’ (Museum of Modern Art Oxford 1999 catalogue pp24-28)

In December 1962 Metzger delivered a lecture/demonstration at Ealing Art College with slides and film entitled Auto-Destructive Art, Auto-Creative Art: The Struggle for the Machine Arts of the Future. One rapt member of the audience was art student Pete Townshend who acknowledged the effect of the lecture on his thought and later went on to play out his own auto-destructive art through his guitar smashing antics with the Who.

The artist went 'on strike' for a number of years (if only more would follow suit - Stewart Home was another fellow 'striker' for a time) and disappeared from view (although he would regularly come in to where I work) before being 'rediscovered' by a new generation.

French Leave

2011-06-03T17:27:00.004+01:00

Just returned from camping in France - the cheap option. Stayed at Camping des 2 Rivieres, Martigny, a few miles south of Dieppe - beautiful site situated, as the name suggests, between two rivers and by a series of lakes - former gravel pits? Fortunately, we only found out on departure that the annoying mechanical noise carried by the wind on certain nights emanated from the busy local abattoir.

Recommended: the excellent salt water swimming pool by the beach at Dieppe - heated outdoor pool and indoor pools and baths; Cafe des Tribunaux in Dieppe, haunt of Wilde and various Decadents; Le Chapeau Rouge restaurant, Neufchatel-en-Bray.

Not recommended: Le Galion restaurant, Quai Henri IV Dieppe - overpriced and undercooked.

Hauntology

2011-05-28T13:08:00.005+01:00

Hauntology - courtesy of Jacques Derrida - is a very fashionable interest these days; you might call it 'nostalgia with a theoretical turn'.

There are various musings to be found here and here. An interesting article By Simon Reynolds in this month's Wire magazine is also worth reading for this thoughts on the gains and the losses (only gradually coming to be realised) resulting in the change from analogue to digital culture and the ready availability of material that was once eagerly sought out, sometimes over many frustrating, but ultimately satisfying, years.

Shopping in London will soon be dominated by two vast malls called Westfield - the one in Shepherd's Bush has been open since 2008, the Stratford version will form a retail gateway for the 2012 Olympics - perfect examples of timeless 'non-places'.

A New Map of Underground London and other news

2011-05-24T22:26:00.010+01:00

Following my ICA talk I met the artist Stephen Walter, who kindly bought one of my books. He has been commissioned by the London Transport Museum to produce a map of underground London; he previously made 'The Island' which was completed in 2008 and can be viewed here on the British Library website. He told me that Subterranean City had been a great help in his preliminary researches. More information on the map can be found on the LTM blog.

Apparently there is a very favourable review of the new edition of Subterranean City in the current London Topographical Society Newsletter. I shall read it next time I visit the City of Westminster Archives Centre.

Apropos my other interests in folklore and witchcraft, an extended interview with probably the leading scholar in these areas Ronald Hutton can be found here.

The little-known Ceremony of the Lilies and Roses at the Tower took place recently - a well-illustrated report can be found here.

Claude Cahun was one of the lesser-known Surrealists - probably because she was a woman. A new exhibition in Paris should change all that.

Walks and Talks

2011-05-17T21:11:00.002+01:00

A reminder that there are still places on the Paul Raymond talk at Westminster Reference Library on Friday 27th May; bookings are also being taken for Bill Bruford on 17th June.

The Decadent London walk on Thursday is now fully (over) booked. Because a tube strike was announced for that day I increased the numbers - then the strike was cancelled, but more people had already booked. I always reckon on a third not turning up, so it should be manageable. Apparently people are still trying to book and names have been taken, so I may have to do another one within the next month.

This blog is one year old - almost the only comment I've received was about a remark I made regarding the style of a certain writer - I won't put the name here again as I suspect it was posted by someone who spends all day trawling for mentions of his favourite author.

A Quare Feller on the Victoria Line

2011-05-11T18:01:00.003+01:00

Did what I thought was a good interview with Robert Elms today for London Radio about 1.00pm. Afterwards off-air I mentioned the Selfridge's subterranean Victorian street story and he told me it was definitely true and that he has had many people contact the show to say they have seen it. However, I 've never seen a photo, or any documentary evidence for it - I've been intending to follow it up with more information soon anyway, so it can wait until then.

In the meantime, I included my favourite tube ghost story on the programme, although I didn't tell it very well. This year on a visit to Colindale Newspaper Library I managed to track down the news report whence the story originated and I have transcribed it in full below. I still wonder whether the release of the film version of Quatermass and the Pit the year before in cinemas (the much earlier and superior tv version did not feature an underground station as the site of the excavation) had any influence on it.

The People Sunday 1 December 1968 p.11
Something quare down the tunnel!

They call him "The Quare Feller". The ghostly manifestation which has been scaring the corduroys off tough Irish lads working in the tunnel of London's new Victoria tube line.

They swear they've seen him when they haven't touched a drop of the hard stuff.

Lads who have long since ceased to believe in leprachauns are terrified of the Thing they have encountered repeatedly in the same 40-yard stretch, where the tunnel cuts under the Thames by Vauxhall Bridge.

One has even quit his job - and working in the tunnel can bring up to £130 a week.

Crew-cutted Lou Chalmers - Big Lou to his mates - is not a boyo that scares easily. "I tell you" he said, "I served in the paratroops in the war but I've never been so frightened as when I came across this Thing. There I was working alone in the tunnel when I felt something brush the back of my neck."

"I turned round. It seemed about seven feet tall, the shape of a man with his arms stretched out to get hold of something."

"I didn't stop to make out details. I just ran!"

Fitter Colin Cobb described an incident when a workmate they knew as Nobby came up from the tunnel shaking, "as white as a sheet". Said Colin: "He told me he had seen the figure of a man down there. he went off for a stiff drink and then quit the job. We haven't seen him since".

John Daley has come a long way from Tipperary, but says he never encountered anything like the apparition, in brown overcoat and cap, which he watched about 25 yards away. "We've heard that a lot of people who died in the Plague were buried down there. But that wouldn't account for the feller wearing modern dress."

And Big Lou said: "The only death in our gang was a bloke who had a heart attack going home on the bus".

Rainbow climbing high

2011-05-11T17:53:00.001+01:00

On my way to the Stan Tracey gig on Monday night at around 8.15 I was greeted by a literally jaw-dropping sight at the end of my road where it comes out onto the panoramic views of the West Hill. The most spectacular rainbow I have ever seen formed a perfect arc from somewhere in the Country Park (it seemed) to a spot far out in the English Channel - all the colours were clearly delineated and there were two sides of a double rainbow. People were talking about it in the jazz club, which is down on the beach.

The light was incredible and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed - yet again, a pity I didn't have a camera with me, although perhaps there's too much emphasis these days on capturing everything for posterity and not enough ephemeral events.

Low-Flying Aircraft (apologies to JGB)

2011-05-09T15:15:00.005+01:00

I have transcribed below a letter published in this week's Hastings and St Leonard's Observer, a not untypical example of the kind of material frequently submitted. I have omitted the name and address of the sender - it could of course be an Ortonesque prank (not guilty). I have never witnessed this alleged phenomenon myself, although coastguard and military planes and helicopters sometimes fly low along the coast - we also get a lot of sea mist at certain times of the year (term times?):

(headline is 'Cloudbusting above [sic] the skies of Hastings?')

I would like to ask the councillors of Hastings to explain what is going on in the skies over the town.

I live facing a local school and college and I have noticed that every term time, the skies over the area have planes constantly flying at low altitudes and leaving behind a trail which spreads out during the course of the day and forms grey clouds which can be seen dropping slowly into grey mist over the areas. I have researched normal contrails that are a natural occurrence when planes are flying at high altitudes, this contrail disperses very quickly, but these low flying aeroplanes criss cross across the sky leaving grids which is [sic] predominantly over the schools and college.

So my question is, why is this happening? And while I am on the subject, who is responsible for this and what is in the cloud that it doesn't disperse as normal?

And why only in term time?

If they have no answers then who does?

I have heard of weather modification and I would think that people should know exactly what's going on and if there are any dangers especially when its [sic] seen to happen over local schools, has anyone else noticed this phenonema [sic]?

J K Huysmans

2011-05-07T11:33:00.019+01:00

This week I finally got round to reading La Bas by J K Huysmans (the Dedalus 2001 edition, it was first published in France in 1891) - what a great book. It's notorious for the depiction of a Black Mass, but the descriptions of the sadisitic excesses of Gilles de Rais - the subject of a biography by the main character Durtal - are equally graphic and disturbing. The translation by Brendan King is excellent and gives the book a very modern sensibility of cynicism and ennui - as Huysmans says, 'There's only one reason for literature to exist, to save those that write it from the tedium of living.' The book can also serve as a guide to the mentalities of the period, when Sar Peladan revived the Rosicrucians and all kinds of religious eccentrics, quacks and charlatans were abroad. Again Huysmans observes, 'At the precise moment Positivism reaches its height, mysticism awakes and a mania for the occult begins'.

I intend to read some more of his oeuvre, starting with En Rade (available from Dedalus); he was also a formidable art critic. His most famous work is A Rebours, translated as Against the Grain or Against Nature, a remarkable book, totally without a plot, consisting of a series of erudite heightened descriptions of the methods used by a wealthy aesthete to cut himself off from consensus reality - you will either love it or hate it - I had trouble getting through the whole thing last time I read it, although I think it is highly relevant in the age of 'virtual reality' and estrangement from the natural world. Arthur Symons called it 'the breviary of the Decadence' and it appears anonymously in Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. After having written it Huysmans was told by his friend Barbey D'Aurevilly that he would have to choose 'between the barrel of a revolver or the foot of the cross' - he chose the latter course, as his later novels testify.

There's a very comprehensive site on Huysmans here.

Victoria line stock

2011-05-03T15:10:00.003+01:00

The new trains on the Victoria line have been gradually introduced since the first ran in July 2009 and are due to take over all services by July this year. An error in Subterranean City regarding the seating has been brought to my attention: on p.201 I say that all seating is transverse, in fact I should have written longitudinal, as on the new North London and East London line trains.

The Scholar's Cell 01/05/2011

2011-05-01T17:47:00.002+01:00

Jack-in-the-Green

2011-04-29T12:01:00.005+01:00

A significant event is taking place today - it's the first day of Jack-in-the-Green, the Hastings festival celebrating the turning of the year and my favourite time to be here. The weather is lovely and later we shall be visiting some Old Town pubs to listen to folk musicians and singers - the Stag is usually the best, if the most crowded; with its mummified cats in a display case, low beamed ceilings and large fireplace it's a suitably atmospheric location. On Monday the Jack will be released from the Fisherman's Museum at Rock-a-Nore and followed in procession through the Old Town. Our newly-elected Tory MP is in a dilemma, as her party want to kill off the Mayday Bank Holiday, thereby depriving the town of one of its principal money-earners of the year.

Austin Osman Spare

2011-04-27T21:09:00.005+01:00

After a very well attended launch at Maggs last week Phil Baker's biography of Austin Osman Spare is finally available in a beautiful edition published by Strange Attractor Press. I'm reading it at the moment and I can thoroughly recommend it. Lots of stuff I didn't know about such as the Cult of Ku and his friendship with Sylvia Pankhurst, Andre Raffalovich and John Gray.

At the launch I met the publisher of Atlas Press, which specialises in avant garde, Surrealist, Oulipo and Dadaist texts - I've already ordered a book from them.

Incidentally, my Decadent London walk on 19th May (see earlier post) is already 50% subscribed - maximum 40 places.

Stoke Newington Bunker

2011-04-25T22:41:00.009+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I was attending a wedding at Stoke Newington Town Hall - as we were not immediate family we were requested to go to the rear of the building to get to the balcony of the main hall where the wedding was to take place. While we were waiting for the back door to be unlocked I took the opportunity to photograph the entrance to the bunker beneath the building, now used as a CCTV and ' emergency planning' centre. For more information see this from Subterranea Britannica, my own Subterranean City and Iain Sinclair's Hackney, That Rose Red Empire. Oh, and I also took some pictures of the wedding.

Jack Cade's Cavern

2011-04-18T17:46:00.013+01:00

In my ICA talk next month on Legends of Underground London I shall briefly mention Jack Cade's Cavern, or Blackheath Cavern to be more precise, that fascinating subterranean excavation beneath The Point in Greenwich that has been 'rediscovered' on at least a couple of occasions. Last week on a suitably atmospheric overcast evening I walked around the area taking photos (top is the path near the summit of The Point) - the centre of Greenwich is a very beautiful part of London especially as you make your way up to Maidenstone Hill (may I recommend the walk mapped out in Andrew Duncan's Village London).

Apparently access was once possible from a back garden in Maidenstone Hill. Many of us would like to discover a secret passage or the entrance to caves in our basements or gardens - for example, our house is very near to closed-off or forgotten access points to St Clement's Caves (something I intend to 'look into' in the future), parts of which are open to the public.

More information is coming to light thanks to the work of diligent researchers and I suggest that you look here , here, here and here for a detailed history. Early this century a large hole opened up in Blackheath Hill and caused all kinds of bother.

The Widow's Bun

2011-04-17T18:57:00.010+01:00

An unusual custom celebrated on Good Friday in London's East End will be taking place next week - try to get along if you are interested in such things. At the moment I cannot access the photos I took on my visit in 2007 but I'll try to put one up later. Below unedited original text from The Folklore of London:

A Bun at The Widow’s Son

Despite its singularly unattractive location on a busy road, surrounded by monochrome tower blocks and appallingly designed ‘industrial units’, The Widow’s Son at 75 Devon’s Road, Bromley-by-Bow, E3 proved to be a traditionally boisterous East End boozer. Fairly recent photographs show the exterior bearing the words “The Widow’s Son On the Site known as The Bun House”, but these must have been erased in subsequent repainting. Outside, in the car park, a party of immaculately uniformed sailors from HMS President, the Royal Naval Reserve, together with their Commanding Officer, stood talking and drinking, having their photos taken and looking decidedly incongruous compared with the casually attired locals, although one or two were dressed as pirates. Inside, a disco blared from one corner and a buffet was laid out for later; the large room was very busy and the atmosphere expectant. Just in front of the bar a couple of nets hung above head height containing, I suppose, around thirty or forty hot cross buns, some with a distinctly unappetising black and mouldy appearance.
At 2.30pm precisely, everyone gathered inside to witness a bun being ceremonially borne into the bar by one of the sailors. He briefly held it aloft for the crowd’s inspection and for photographs. I was surprised at its size, more like a small cake than a bun, perhaps because it was easier to photograph or possibly as a comment on contemporary supersizing. (Old photographs of the custom sometimes show a larger-than-average bun). Each quarter of the hot-cross bun held one of the numerals of the year – it had obviously been baked specially for the occasion. After a couple of minutes an attractive Wren was hoisted up by her fellow matelots before popping the bun into the net, to the accompaniment of numerous camera flashes, mine included. This annual Good Friday ceremony had been performed once more and the merriment could continue, but the traditional origin of this custom is much sadder than the contemporary celebration might suggest.
The Widow’s Son Bun Ceremony is said to have originated in the early nineteenth century, when the site of the pub was occupied by a humble cottage. Here lived a poor widow, together with her only son. The boy went off to sea, possibly during the Napoleonic Wars, promising to return at Easter. On Good Friday, expecting his imminent arrival, the mother baked a hot cross bun. Sadly, her son failed to return but, having never received official notification of his demise, she continued to live in hope, baking and keeping a bun for him on every Good Friday until her own death. By that time the house had become famous for its melancholy collection. When a pub was built on the site of the mother’s cottage in the 1840s it was decided to name it The Widow’s Son and to continue the quaint custom. Subsequently, every year, on Good Friday, a sailor or Wren from the Royal Navy has been invited to place another bun in the net above the bar, for which he or she receives a pint of beer or similar drink in payment.
Historian Ronald Hutton writes that, “During the nineteenth century folklorists discovered the superstition that bread, buns, or biscuits baked upon this day [Good Friday] had especially beneficial powers. They were generally believed to never go mouldy and to be capable of curing diseases, especially intestinal disorders, if eaten. If hung in a house, they were thought to protect it against misfortune. Not merely the day of manufacture was important, however, for like a pre-Reformation host they had to be marked with the sign of the cross.” Hutton believes that this custom recalled the veneration of the consecrated bread of the mass, particularly on Good Friday when the host was used in the rite of the sepulchre.
William Hone also noted in The Every-Day Book that, “In the houses of some ignorant people, a Good Friday bun is still kept ‘for luck’, and sometimes there hangs from the ceiling a hard biscuit-like cake of open-cross work…to remain there till displaced on the next Good Friday by one of similar make…[I have] heard it affirmed that it preserves the house from fire.” Pieces of bun, mixed with water, were used as a remedy for diarrhoea and whooping cough. It was also generally considered to bring good luck and in some coastal areas was believed to protect all members of the household from shipwreck. This could account for the link with sailors and the sea at The Widow’s Son.
Slight variations in the tale have been recorded: that the son asked his mother to bake him a bun to enjoy on his return; that the widow’s cottage was already a pub and that she was the publican; that neighbours hung up the accumulated buns in the house after her death; or that subsequent residents in her dwelling, by then famous as the “Bun House” or “Bun Cottage”, faithfully kept up the custom until a pub was built on the site. It has also been claimed that after the widow’s death her collection of buns was bought at auction by a local publican as a gimmick and added to every year thereafter.
Writing in 1943 the folklorist Christina Hole recorded that, 'The collection now totals one hundred and seventy-three buns which during air-raids are taken to a place of safety along with the other valuables of the house.' Many books state that the continuation of the custom is a condition of the pub's lease, although the present landlady is unaware of any such stipulation. She also confirmed that there are no older buns stored in the cellars and that those hanging in a bunch above the bar are the only surviving examples, following a fire in recent years.

Comus, The Unthanks and Trembling Bells

2011-04-06T22:45:00.010+01:00

Some activity on the 'folk' music front recently: went to see Trembling Bells and The Unthanks at the De La Warr Pavilion on 20 March. The former have a female singer with a beautiful clear voice and a guitarist who plays outside the normal folk parameters - songs were a bit samey though. The Unthanks were as desolately atmospheric as ever, much expanded from the previous time I had seen them, with a string section and additional musicians. Highlights for me were an extremely disturbing song by Alex Glasgow called something like 'Close the coalhouse door', which would put Nick Cave to shame and a surprising cover of possibly my favourite King Crimson track 'Starless' (without the incredibly controlled guitar solo of course, probably one of Fripp's simplest, but most effective).

Comus playing last Saturday night at the Borderline were an intriguing proposition: split since 1972 and recently reforming owing to their steadily building legend (the internet plays a big part in these reunions I feel) based almost exclusively on their debut First Utterance; pretty much all the original members are in the present band. The rekindled interest lies in the unusually intense vocals of Roger Wootton and the unusual subject matter of the songs: mental illness, murder, paganism etc. They played the songs I was familiar with from the first lp plus some new material - one new song with a heavy breathing backing was really impressive. Female singer Bobbie Watson was not only stunningly well preserved but could also still hit all the high notes on The Herald. The crowd were hysterical and a surprising mixture of ages - some had clearly travelled a long way to be there. One problem with these reformations is recapturing the intensity of early recordings when mental states, living circumstances, emotional tensions, were often wildly different.

They were part of the 'legendary' Sixties Beckenham Arts Lab, which also spawned one David Bowie - apparently they also supported him in the early days. I had to leave before the encore to get back to the seaside, but it had been an interesting evening. At the beginning of procedings some ancient footage of the Incredible String Band was played on a screen at the back of the stage.

Young support band Diagonal were very good, channelling Hawkwind, Gong, Van der Graaf Generator and other classic prog acts and it wasn't embarrassing - they even (mostly) had the requisite amount of long hair and beards - the guitarist resembled the young Daevid Allen. They played for nearly an hour and only managed to get through four 'songs' - brilliant.

Stan Tracey on the Beach

2011-04-06T22:34:00.002+01:00

One of the legends of British jazz Stan Tracey is playing at the Hastings and St Leonards Angling Club next month on Monday 9th May. I imagine this is quite a coup. Maybe John Mclaughlin could be lured there later this year - mind you I saw him in the late 70s at the Rainbow and left before the end. This concert is £10 instead of the usual £7 - I suppose I should try to get there early.

Tottenham Court Road engineering works

2011-04-05T19:31:00.003+01:00

Before the Comus concert at The Borderline on Saturday night I wandered round the edge of the Tottenham Court Road Crossrail building site. It was depressing to see the security gates installed in the sleazy but atmospheric alleyways off Denmark Street - still weird not to see the Astoria. Charing Cross Road is closed at the northern end and all buses are diverted; as from last Saturday 2 April until November (allegedly) no Northern line trains will be stopping at Tottenham Court Road station. There are details of the huge and complex engineering works here at London Reconnections, including diversions of major utilities. I'm one of the people that likes the Paolozzi mosaics and wants them preserved undamaged - we've already lost the pool and fountains from in front of Centre Point.

GHost

2011-04-04T21:50:00.003+01:00

I attended the fascinating talk by Phil Baker on Austin Osman Spare at the ICA last Thursday, part of the Strange Attractor Salon series, for which I'm giving the final talk.

Afterwards a few of us repaired to the ICA bar and then ate in Chinatown. I had a chat with the artist Sarah Sparkes, who sounds as if she is doing some fascinating work, especially with the Harry Price Archive in the University of London and the GHost shows.

Decadent London Walk - change of date

2011-04-02T13:17:00.004+01:00

Owing to a clash with another event I am rescheduling the Decadent London walk to the day before: Thursday 19th May. Meeting up inside Westminster Reference Library at 6.00 to leave about 10 minutes later. I've changed the date in the previous entry.

Mundus Subterraneus

2011-03-30T19:31:00.003+01:00

Mundus Subterraneus is an interesting site that features:

A bibliography of literature on the Hollow Earth, subterranean worlds, worlds beyond the poles, the Secret World, the centre of the Earth, the earth's interior, the hollow globe, Symzonia, Geo-Kosmos and the cellular kosmology.

See also Arktos by Joscelyn Godwin on these topics.

Ghost station pubs?

2011-03-29T18:03:00.008+01:00

An article from last week's Independent dangles the tantalising prospect of pubs, bars or concert venues opening up in some of London Underground's disused or 'ghost' stations. I think this is probably as likely to happen as the Lost Rivers being reopened in central London - another idea mooted in recent years and included in Subterranean City. The main reason will probably be that old chestnut 'health and safety', although I suppose it might be possible in one or two of the surface buildings - the former entrance to Hyde Park Corner housed the Pizza on the Park and other surface buildings such as South Kentish Town are used by businesses. More information here.

Baron Corvo

2011-03-26T15:41:00.012Z

Many years ago, when I worked in a public library in Kensington a peculiar man, frequently clad in lederhosen, would come in and chat with the male workers and request a series of arcane (for me at the time) books – most of them eventually had to be acquired from the British Library and other specialist sources. One author whose name I remember cropping up many times was Frederick Rolfe, also known as Baron Corvo; I didn’t have a clue who he was.

Decades passed before I was recommended to read the classic ‘experiment in biography’ The Quest for Corvo by A J A Symons, which through a series of epistolary investigations and personal interviews with those who had met him, paints a portrait of a strange, obsessive, difficult, pedantic and ultimately lonely individual who spent many years in poverty writing numerous books and articles which were pretty much ignored in his day. It is also interesting to discover how he was befriended on many occasions, mostly by members of the closely closeted homosexual community of the period (by reading between the lines of The Quest) and managed to turn any potential friend into a ruthless enemy – in his own mind at least. His perverse behaviour was to be his fatal flaw.

One of the most fascinating parts of Symons’s book is the examination of how Corvo’s reputation grew after his death, until he inspired a collector’s cult, for which any scrap of paper or jotting had immense value. The collective name for his writings and memorabilia is known amongst bibliophiles as Corviana – Donald Weeks, an especially obsessive collector and biographer died in 2004; his collection eventually was given to Leeds University. The fate of various Corvo texts has also inspired a huge amount of detective work and manuscripts once thought lost forever have been rediscovered by diligent, truffle-hunting researchers.

Personally I find Rolfe’s writing difficult to take in large doses – he revels in language but also loves to invent new words, which always annoys this reader, whoever does it. I also read his autobiographical novel Nicholas Crabbe last week, again I find the obsessive tone wearying, but it provides a useful insight into his dealings with important publishers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries such as John Lane and Grant Richards.

Bill Bruford

2011-03-25T19:09:00.005Z

I am very happy to report that Bill Bruford will be reading from his autobiography at Westminster Reference Library on the evening of 17th June. He played with some of my favourite groups in the 1970s, although when I try to think of the occasions I've seen him live I can only remember the Discipline (before they reverted to King Crimson) concert at Her Majesty's Theatre on 10th May 1981. I'm probably going to be introducing him - below is the text I've compiled for the poster. It hasn't been advertised on the website yet.

An Evening with Bill Bruford

6.30-8.00 pm FREE

In the 1970s Bill Bruford played drums and percussion in some of Britain’s most successful bands Yes, King Crimson, Genesis and UK as well as such cult groups as Gong and National Health before forming his own band Bruford. From 1985 he played in the jazz group Earthworks until his retirement from public performance in 2009.

Tonight Bill will read from his autobiography (published by Jawbone Press, 2009) and answer audience questions. Copies of the book will be for sale on the night.

‘Bruford's autobiography not only provides a humorous insight into the daily detail of a successful musician's life but also grapples with the big existential issues of what it takes to be an artist of any sort in the modern world.’ The Guardian

Future London Tunnels

2011-03-21T17:52:00.004Z

From London Reconnections a couple of interesting maps: both of relevance to Subterranean City, although the first is possibly the most interesting as it shows all the tunnels planned under the capital in the next few years, including the Chelsea-Hackney Line (often referred to these days as Crossrail 2), the Thames Tidal Tunnel and various power supply tunnels.

Luna Sea

2011-03-19T20:02:00.004Z

Tonight I walked home from St Leonards station along the seafront and saw a beautiful full moon creating a corridor of light across the water. Apparently tonight's moon is unusually large - a perigee moon in fact. I saw numerous camera flashes going off including one on the pier, which is supposed to be off limits as a dangerous structure since the fire last year. The view of the moon through the substructure of the pier was probably the most impressive of all, the tide was out and the sandbanks and spits were gently illuminated. Until I moved to the seaside I had never witnessed the effect of moonlight on water - I had to rely on painters such Wright of Derby - but when I occasionally feel that I should have stayed in London, sights such as this convince me otherwise. Pity I didn't have my camera with me.

Radio, Radio

2011-03-16T18:53:00.002Z

It's very likely that I'm going to be interviewed on the Robert Elms show on Wednesday 11th May at around 1.00pm about my talk at the ICA on Legends of Underground London the following evening. I've been his guest a few times in the past, mostly around the time that my various books have been published. I didn't get a chance to promote the Folklore of London book on the show in 2008 as another book on the topic that came out at the same time got the slot - this appearance will help to remedy that.

British Sea Power

2011-03-16T18:46:00.004Z

British Sea Power played at Westminster Reference Library recently. Some film of the performance can be found here. Not really my bag, although I admire their attitude and the fact that they like to perform in unusual places. Support was provided by poet and raconteur Jock Scot, who, I realised half-way through his performance, had attended my Decadent London book launch with my father-in-law - he left before the absinthe was brought out.

Decadence

2011-03-16T18:21:00.005Z

I shall be leading a Decadent London walk on Thursday 19th May, starting from Westminster Reference Library in St Martin's Street, just south of Leicester Square. We commence at 6.00pm and it will last around two hours, finishing at a pub with suitably 'decadent' credentials.

It will be an event for Adult Learners Week, although it also coincides nicely with the exhibition on the Aesthetic Movement at the V&A - I should stress that the walk is not part of their event programme or directly related to the exhibition.

Lest there be any confusion, when I say 'Decadent London' I'm referring specifically to life in the city during the 1890s, when characters such as Arthur Symons, Lionel Johnson, Aubrey Beardsley and of course Oscar Wilde were enjoying their moment of fame. The walk will be based on my book on that subject (above).

The walk is free and should be booked in advance through the library; it hasn't been advertised on their website yet.

Further posts may well have a yellowish decadent tinge as I undertake my revision.

Blandland Blog

2011-03-10T16:03:00.000Z

I should mention that from this year I am also running another blog called Blandland, which will be added to about twice a month. Any potential publishers wishing to bring it out in book form please contact me via Facebook.

Paul Raymond talk

2011-03-03T20:46:00.005Z

I've managed to arrange a talk and discussion at Westminster Reference Library by the excellent writer Paul Willets (biographer of Julian Maclaren-Ross) and Marc Glendening of the estimable Sohemian Society on the life of Paul Raymond, pornographer and property baron of Soho. Willets has written a biography of Raymond called Members Only and has promised to bring along some suitable (?) film clips. (Which reminds me that I saw the dvd Primitive London recently, featuring a lot of 'showgirls' and a fascinating documentary on 1960s striptease called Carousella as an extra). It will take place on the evening of 27 May, details will be available from the library website nearer the date. This Saturday British Sea Power are playing there - not a favourite band of mine but I may pop along.

Fairlight and D'Oyly Carte

2011-03-03T20:34:00.006Z

Today, as the weather was sunny, I undertook my first ‘proper’ walk of the year, from Fairlight village through Fire Hills and Hastings Country Park back to my house. An amusing incident occurred on the journey to Fairlight when the inevitable bus-borne alcoholic dropped his can of beer, which exploded and soaked most of the pensioners at the front - he didn’t bother apologising.

On an earlier visit to the church of St Andrews Fairlight (the tower can be seen from many miles around and can be climbed on certain days) I had made an interesting Decadent London-related discovery: in the graveyard can be found the burial place of Richard D’Oyly Carte (1844-1901) theatre impresario well known for staging Gilbert and Sullivan’s most famous works under the auspices of Mr R. D’Oyly Carte’s Opera Company. My photo of the grave above.

He also commissioned the construction of the Savoy Theatre, the first public building in the world to be lit by electricity; it opened on 10 October 1881. On that day Patience, G & S’s satire of the aesthetic movement, moved to the Savoy from the Opera Comique, where it had debuted on 23 April 1881. The character Bunthorne has been taken to be based on Oscar Wilde, but initially was probably modelled on Swinburne and Rossetti. D’Oyly Carte managed Wilde’s American lecture tour in 1882. His Savoy Hotel next door to the theatre opened in 1889 – it was recently reopened after a huge refurbishment programme.

East London line reaches Highbury & Islington

2011-03-01T19:40:00.001Z

The East London line extension to Highbury & Islington did indeed open yesterday morning. The Londonist has a post about it with links to further information.

Whoops!

2011-03-01T18:57:00.003Z

Just completed Whoops! by John Lanchester, an idiot's guide to an idiotic financial system which many of us shall be bailing out for the foreseeable future while the people responsible for the recent disasters pocket large bonuses and generous pensions. In 200 pages Lanchester manages to explain, even to finance ignoramuses such as myself, the ‘flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works’, in the words of Alan Greenspan, the man in charge of US financial policy (and disciple of dodgy ‘philosopher’ Ayn Rand) during the crucial years.

In a nutshell Lanchester believes that the credit crunch, ‘was based on a climate (the post-Cold War victory of free-market capitalism), a problem (the sub-prime mortgages), a mistake (the mathematical models of risk) and a failure, that of the regulators.’ He describes in damning detail the origins of the crisis in a quasi-religious, self-deluding belief amongst financial ‘experts’ and governments such as those in the US, UK, Ireland, Iceland and Spain in ‘the market’ and its miraculous self-regulating properties, coupled with newly minted financial instruments such as CDOs (collateralized default swaps) CDSs (credit default swaps), which few fully understood but in which many bankers had blind unswerving belief, especially when they were earning them huge salaries and bonuses. This money-making edifice was built on foundations so shaky and insubstantial that most intelligent outsiders, had they been properly informed of the nature of these transactions, could have predicted a disaster waiting to happen – a few astute bankers and journalists did, but they were ignored or shouted down by the true believers. In the US in particular outright fraud was perpetrated by the likes of Enron and Bernard Madoff.

Over here the inevitably dire outcome was not helped by a housing-price bubble that was bound to burst hyped up by hours and hours of daily gung-ho television programmes telling us we were stupid not to be buying up properties to rent out, or purchase a couple of extra houses to do-up and sell for a massive profit; these shows seem strangely to have diminished in number now. He also points out that Britain has half the total European credit-card debt.

For those put off by the finance jargon of the first five chapters, the final two chapters of the book could be read on their own as they encapsulate the central problems of the whole enterprise. This is pretty much summed up in the section quoted below [from pp187-188]:

‘Mrs Thatcher began, and Labour continued, a switch towards an economy that was reliant on financial services, at the expense of other areas of society. One can disagree…with that policy, but what was equally damaging for Britain was the hegemony of economic, or quasi-economic thinking. The economic metaphor came to be applied to every aspect of modern life, especially the areas where it simply didn’t belong. In fields such as education, equality of opportunity, health, employees’ rights, the social contract and culture, the first conversation to happen should be about values and principles; then you have the conversation about costs, and what you as a society can afford. In Britain for the last twenty to thirty years that has all been the wrong way round. There was a kind of reverse takeover, in which City values came to dominate the whole of British life. There needs to be a general acceptance that the model has failed. The brakes-off, deregulate or die, privatise or stagnate, lunch if for wimps, greed is good, what’s good for the financial sector is good for the economy model; the sack the bottom 10 per cent, bonus-driven, if you can’t measure it it isn’t real model which spread from the City to government and from there through the whole culture, in which the idea of value has gradually faded to be replaced by the idea of price.’

No lessons appear to have been learned from the recent debacle. In The Quiet Coup, Simon Johnson, formerly chief economist of the IMF recorded that as part of his work he had, ‘acquired an extensive experience of countries which had effectively been captured by a ruling elite who governed entirely in their own interests. His startling conclusion about the current crisis is that the US has become one of those countries.’ Given the number of millionaires and ex-public schoolboys in the current cabinet, the same conclusion might be drawn about our own present situation.

East London Line Extension to open on Monday

2011-02-25T19:26:00.001Z

According to London Reconnections the East London line extension to Highbury and Islington will open on Monday 28th February - the first train will run at 0955. As that's one of my childcare days I can't be there, which is a pity. The extended route should increase usage of the ELL, which I have found to be pretty low outside the rush hours, now that it connects with the Victoria and North London lines.

The Gipsy Queen of Norwood

2011-02-22T17:54:00.001Z

Looking at the Derelict London site is a saddening experience, especially the pub section. During the writing of The Folklore of London I repeatedly found that pubs that I wanted to visit, to see what vestiges of their folk tales and legends survived, had been closed, turned into flats or torn down. This process continues remorselessly. I notice from the site that the Gipsy Queen pub in West Norwood has been converted into flats [the photo above is from Derelict London]. Below is the unedited text from the book on the reason for the pub's name, as another site related to local folklore vanishes:

Gipsy Hill was for many years a popular spot in Norwood for gipsies to set up camp. The “Queen of the Norwood Gipsies” Margaret Finch was a long-term resident who made her living by telling fortunes; when she died it was said that she was 109 years old. Owing to the fact that her body had become rigidly fixed into her habitual posture of sitting with her chin resting on her knees, Margaret Finch had to be buried in a square box on 24 October 1740 at Beckenham Parish Church. Even today there is a pub at 20 Norwood High Street, SE27 called the Gipsy Queen.

Margaret Finch was succeeded by her niece “Queen Bridget” who died in 1768 and is buried in the old graveyard of Dulwich. A pantomime entitled “The Norwood Gypsies” was performed at Covent Garden in 1777. Twenty years later, a police raid was carried out on the gipsy encampment, but the community was not finally dispersed until the passage of the Croydon and Lambeth Enclosure Acts at the beginning of the nineteenth century. There has, however, been a noticeable gipsy/traveller presence in South London up to the present day.

Customs and Ceremonies of London: Sir John Cass Commemoration

2011-02-16T16:28:00.000Z

Over the course of 2011 I want to try to mention some of the lesser-known ceremonies that take place each year in London. They are covered in my Folklore of London book but are always subject to change or even disappearance. The chapter on customs and ceremonies was the most difficult to compile, as it was surprisingly difficult to get up-to-date information; also given my work and living situation it was, and still is, impossible for me to visit very many of these ceremonies. I managed quite a few during the research period for the book, but there were many more that I just couldn't get to or was not permitted to attend. If I get the time I'll try to get to a couple this year, but there are so many other demands on my free time these days.

Here's one from this month, which I have not personally seen. NB the link takes you to the Foundation's website which gives Cass's birth date as 1 February 1661, although the ODNB has him baptised on 28 February 1660:

Sir John Cass's Foundation - Founders Day took place on 1 February 2011

[original text from Folklore of London book]
Around the first week in March staff, pupils and governors from the Sir John Cass Foundation schools attend a memorial service at the church of St Botolph-without-Aldgate; formerly the date was on or near the birthday of its founder. Sir John Cass was probably born on 20 February 1660 and baptised at St Botolph Aldgate on 28 February. During an illustrious career he was Alderman of the Ward of Portsoken, elected Sheriff in June 1711 and became a Member of Parliament for the City; he was knighted in 1713. In 1710 he established his school in the churchyard of St Botolph’s for the education of fifty boys and forty girls. The church was declared unsafe in 1740 and rebuilt four years later to the designs of George Dance.

As he lay dying at his home, in Grove Street, Hackney, on 5 July 1718, legend has it that Sir John Cass struggled to write his will, in which he intended to leave all his property to the school. After having initialled only three pages of the lengthy document he suddenly suffered a fatal haemorrhage that stained the writing quill with his blood. The incomplete will was contested, but was finally upheld by the Court of Chancery in 1732. The school, which by this time had been forced to close, was reopened and the Foundation established. Today, as well as the Primary School, there is a secondary school in Tower Hamlets, Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media and Design (part of the London Metropolitan University) and the Cass Business School (part of City University).

For the commemorative service children from the primary school sport red feathers, which appear on the Cass coat of arms, a rather morbid reminder of the dramatic moment of death of the school’s founder. The event commences with a procession of around thirty pupils and guests from the Foundation’s Jewry Street offices to St Botolph-without-Aldgate. The service includes performances by pupils from the Foundation's primary and secondary schools. The reception afterwards is by invitation only, but members of the public are welcome to attend the service.

Mind Your Language

2011-02-12T12:09:00.000Z

An 'amazing' article by Hugo Williams in this week's Times Literary Supplement on the present state of our language, particularly regarding currently fashionable words and phrases. As he says, 'Inflation is the name of the game' so that something that was once good or all right is now 'amazing' or 'fantastic'; similarly a bad event tends to be 'traumatic'. Traditional British reticence and modesty have no place here.

He also bemoans the fate of prepositions, with trains now arriving 'into' stations; I've noticed that people 'protest' something - 'against' has disappeared and for some time now we've been 'bored of' rather than 'bored with' pedants complaining about such changes. It's obvious that American English is to blame for all these imports -I suppose you know when you've been fully colonised when you speak exactly the same language; but surely these overly positive and self-congratulatory phrases (I'm good)would once have been inimical to the British character. Modern American usage has even invaded our own history. Williams gives an example from The King's Speech - Bertie says 'Excuse me?' when Edward tells him he intends to marry Mrs Simpson when the response would have been 'What?' or 'I beg your pardon?' - didn't any of the actors comment on this?

My own candidate for the latest buzz term, not noted by Williams, is 'pop-up' (should it have a hyphen?) which is really taking off in 2011. Sadly, 'iconic' still rules as the most overused adjective, it pops up everywhere, although I think that 'rocket science' and 'the elephant in the room' are in decline. 'Did you see what I did there?'

Remembering Kenneth Grant

2011-02-04T19:20:00.001Z

There we were in the pub a couple of weeks ago discussing the occultist and writer Kenneth Grant - I was told he was now in a nursing home. Little did we know that he had recently died, although it was only announced in the last few days. I haven't read a great deal of his bizarre output but he was one of the last people to visit Aleister Crowley when he was eking out the end of his life at Netherwood in Hastings; the house has been demolished to be replaced by an anonymous Brookside close just off The Ridge. His short book Remembering Aleister Crowley contains photographs, letters and memorabilia from this period. He must, I imagine, have been one of the last living people to have met the 'Great Beast'.

ICA Talk for Strange Attractor Salon

2011-02-02T17:33:00.000Z

The ICA website now features a page on the Strange Attractor Salon during the Nathaniel Mellors exhibition, an artist that, I have to admit, I'm not familiar with - have to remedy that. My talk on the 'arcane subject' of underground London will be on Thursday 12 May.

Wire in Brighton

2011-02-02T16:40:00.000Z

To the Brighton Kommedia last night to see Wire. Now minus Bruce Gilbert they were augmented by a good-looking young guitarist who resembled Michael Karoli from Can (Halleluhwah was playing while they set up). Colin Newman looks even more like a friendly geography teacher while Graham Lewis on bass remains menacing; Robert Grey (formerly Gotobed) kept up the trademark metronomic beat.

I’ve seen them a few times over the years, unfortunately not in their first 1977-79 incarnation, when they made their classic three lps that showed a staggering invention and musical progression compared to their peers. The first time I heard them on the radio – a track from Pink Flag – I could tell they were trying to so something much more interesting than a three chord thrash; they had atmosphere for a start. A gig at the Bloomsbury Theatre on 21 July 1985 was a triumphal return – they refused to play any old songs but fortunately the new stuff was strong. Support was provided by Michael Clarke doing a dance piece called The Shivering Man which certainly bemused a lot of the audience; I was a big fan of his at the time.

The most unusual concert was at the Barbican Flag:Burning, a collaboration with Jake and Dinos Chapman who screened fitness training videos behind them as they played Pink Flag in its entirety, an amusing conceit that got dull after it was used for the entire duration; the music was great, very precise. After a very long wait the second half was much stranger with each band member encased in a large box with a mesh front onto which various close-up images were projected – they played their latest record Send.

At Brighton there were a couple of new songs that sounded like old ones (at one point I thought they had started A Question of Degree, but they hadn’t). The new cd is promising – there’s a beautiful melodic song called Adapt and plenty of noise and belligerence. Newman’s psychedelic tendencies were not so much in evidence and much of it was definitely punk rock, albeit their artier version of it. I was especially pleased to hear Two People in a Room, possibly my favourite Wire track: compelling, linear, concise – one of those songs that you couldn’t imagine any other band thinking up. Another old favourite Kidney Bingos was also played, although I thought Drill was disappointing compared to how they used to play it in a elongated, more punishing version.

The second encore was a new song that was going for the My Bloody Valentine painfully loud wall of noise and succeeded well, although as a result I’m definitely suffering from Eardrum Buzz (a song they didn’t play). The guitarist from the support group thrashing around a la Thurston Moore while sitting directly in front of his amp is definitely a candidate for tinnitus. Wire didn’t come on until around 9.45 so I knew I wouldn’t get in until 1.00am – the midnight train from Lewes to Hastings was standing room only to Eastbourne, which was a shock.

Tunnel Vision

2011-01-24T19:09:00.001Z

The first episode of the current series of Great British Railway Journeys features a lot of stuff that appears in Subterranean City. Michael Portillo travels on the East London line, walks along Brunel's Thames Tunnel between Rotherhithe and Wapping in the company of the Brunel Museum's Robert Hulse (they may still have some leftover copies of the 250 I signed last year for Open House) and travels in the cab of a Javelin train from St Pancras to Chatham, passing through the tunnels just outside the London terminus. Even better, the series ends in Hastings. The first episode is available for the next 18 days here.

2011 creaks into gear

2011-01-24T18:12:00.000Z

It looks as if I shall be doing a talk dealing with underground London in fact and folklore at the ICA on Thursday 12th May. It will be part of a fascinating-looking Strange Attractor Salon; many of the other talks will be worth attending.

I'm hoping to do something, a walk perhaps, for Adult Learners' Week the following week.

Also, following a very positive meeting on Friday evening another publishing project may be underway to which I shall contribute a substantial essay. I don't want to reveal too much about it at the moment, but as part of my research I've started reading a book about the Crazy Gang.

Fin de Siecle Time Capsule

2011-01-23T15:05:00.000Z

Via feuilleton a link to the opening of a house in Moulins in France untouched for 100 years, the home of Louis Mantin, an undistinguished civil servant who inherited a fortune at the age of 42 and set about creating his then-state-of-the-art residence; comparisons with Huysmans' Des Esseintes from A Rebours are inescapable.

Mirage Men

2011-01-20T16:09:00.000Z

Another book recently finished was Mirage Men by Mark Pilkington. Here finally is the (probable) truth about 99% of the 'UFO phenomenon' - it was a massive project of disinformation by the US intelligence services to disguise the development of high-tech ultra-secret new aircraft. His arguments are very persuasive, although the intelligence agent Richard Doty, whom he befriends and who would appear to have been behind vast swathes of false UFO documentation, seems to have come to believe his own fabrications. The book covers a lot of ground including the bewildering Serpo project and throws all kinds of mind-boggling ideas at the reader before concluding that UFOs are 'weapons of mass deception'. This is one of the most important books on the subject and can take it's place with Dark White by Jim Schnabel, studies by David Clarke and Andy Roberts, Bryan Appleyard's Aliens, Why are they here? and Jacque Vallee's Passport to Magonia, together with many of the sceptical articles in the late lamented Magonia edited by John Rimmer.

PFM

2011-01-19T17:33:00.001Z

To continue the Progressive rock theme I thought I should mention Italy’s most renowned exponents of the genre: PFM. Once again thanks to a generous donation I’ve had the chance to hear the Esoteric reissues of the records they put out in the ‘Manticore (ELP’s label) years’ – I didn’t own any of their work in the 1970s, only occasionally hearing them on Alan Freeman’s radio show. The initials stand for Premiata Forneria Marconi or ‘Award-winning Marconi Bakery’ – understandably they kept to the abbreviated version in the UK. Coalescing as PFM in 1970, they are still going and are playing shows in Italy this year.

Five years ago in Rome I bought a cd of Per un Amico, their second lp from 1972 and found it a lovely piece of atmospheric pastoral prog, heavy on the twelve-string guitars and mellotron with flurries of flute and violin, delicately arranged, like very early Genesis and King Crimson, but with a European classical influence. Last year’s reissues include the (mostly) sung-in-English version, renamed Photos of Ghosts, which came out in the following year on Manticore.

I was surprised at how different it was to the Italian release, and not in a good way: what sounded lyrical and mysterious when sung in Italian sounded crude and stilted in English, the production is much punchier and ‘in your face’ and the running order has been altered, with two extra tracks (inferior in my opinion) stuck in. Pete Sinfield’s lyrics have not improved with time; a typo in the reissue cd booklet means that Mr 9 ‘till 5 ‘shits his eyes’ - this song was better as an instrumental. I would definitely seek out the Italian version of this record if possible. It also makes me want to get hold of their first lp Storia di un minuto (1972), never released in this country.

Third lp L’Isola di Niente was released over here in 1974 as The World Became the World. I haven’t heard the original Italian version so I can only go on the reissued Manticore recording. Musically this is still impressive in places: the huge choral opening of The Mountain is typical of the period; Just Look Away is a very pretty tune, greatly in debt to Genesis, spoilt by the problem of singing the English lyrics; the title track is a nice piece of King Crimson bombast; Four Holes in the Ground is probably their most recognisable and catchy song, with some lively synth and a Yesalike chorus – a prog paradigm? Apparently Pete Sinfield was relieved of lyric-writing duties after this record and you can see why on Is my face on Straight? a satire of contemporary bourgeois mores that just sounds embarrassing today, it’s also the weakest track musically.

The live album Cook followed and in 1975 Manticore released Chocolate Kings, by which time the band had acquired a lead vocalist Bernardo Lanzetti. Unfortunately, despite the weaknesses of the previous singers, I find Lanzetti’s brash and more-sandpapery-than-Roger-Chapman voice difficult to warm to and at times positively off-putting. Having said that, there are some good bits on this record, the jaunty title track in particular, although the vocal is irritatingly abrasive and there are a number of arresting instrumental passages on the other four songs. The debt to contemporary progressive bands is obvious from titles such as Out of the Roundabout and Harlequin (there’s a song of that name on Nursery Cryme). Nevertheless, I keep coming back to this one. The accompanying live cd from a University of Nottingham show in May 1976 shows another of Progressive’s unfortunate traits: everything is played at far faster tempi than the recorded versions, erasing any subtlety from the music.

With a new singer and a harder sound PFM were aiming for success in America. However, it now seems very naïve when they claim that they were surprised at their failure to make a positive impression over there, after attempting to promote a record whose theme was the dubious legacy of US imperialist interference in Italy following World War Two. I really like the simplicity of the UK and US sleeve (with nods to Warhol and Jasper Johns?) apart from the lettering, a distinct improvement on the rather unsettling Italian version. There’s an appearance on The Old Grey Whistle Test from 1976 on YouTube where they play Chocolate Kings, but punk was already under way and they were soon to be yesterday’s men in the UK.

It’s 1977 and they issue Jet Lag. Recorded in LA - enough to make the heart sink – it’s not very good; once more the hoarse vocals give me real problems. The only track I can listen to is Meridiani, a Zappaesque guitar instrumental – the rest are tune-free attempts at a more commercial style with a sprinkling of jazz-rock. The lyrics, written by the bass player’s girlfriend are very poor, making Pete Sinfield look like Stephen Sondheim - those to Left- Handed Theory being especially funny:

Left-handed person
Once was the sign of a witch
Now the world needs them
To teach us a different stitch
…
Think of Da Vinci
His ambidextrous arts
Hendrix’s guitar sang
Sweet feedback lightnin’ from Mars
And in reflection
We see the stars

Surely the only use of the word ‘ambidextrous’ in a rock lyric, although I could be wrong. After this record they seem to have given up attempting to crack the English-language music market and reverted to Italian records – I haven’t heard any of them, but I imagine they aren’t that great. Apparently in recent years they have appeared at various Prog-themed festivals.

Another contemporary ‘Progressive’ Italian group that are well worth checking out are Goblin, namely the soundtracks to the 70s Dario Argento horror films, which are not nearly as dated as the music of PFM, charming as some of that remains.

Sleeping Beauty

2011-01-19T13:08:00.000Z

Having attended two pantomimes this season – after a gap of well over 30 years, the last I remember seeing were at the London Palladium: Dick Whiittington starring Tommy Steele and Aladdin with Cilla – I’m glad that this form of indigenous entertainment is still robustly alive. Cinderella at Hastings’ White Rock Theatre featured Jimmy Osmond as Buttons and was thoroughly entertaining and surprisingly lavish; Sleeping Beauty at the Anvil in Basingstoke was about half an hour too long but did star Wendy Craig and Abi Titmuss.

The latter panto made me muse on the appeal of the Sleeping Beauty tale to artists and the two English examples that immediately sprang to mind were the Briar Rose series by Edward Burne-Jones and The Maybe by Cornelia Parker (I own a lithograph of one of her Pornographic Drawings). Burne-Jones completed his series in 1890 after many years work – they are installed in the Music Room of Buscot Park, Faringdon, Oxfordshire and are truly a magical sight. For The Maybe in 1995, the actress Tilda Swinton slept in a large glass case at the centre of London’s Serpentine Gallery surrounded by items that had belonged to famous historical characters; if I recall correctly visitors were pretty subdued on my visit, - apparently every now and then someone would try to wake her up by shouting.

East London Line Progress

2011-01-11T19:50:00.000Z

News from London Reconnections on the East London Line extension to Highbury & Islington. It seems that this section will open at some point in February - I shall try to ride on it as soon as I can. I have to say that whenever I' ve used it since last year's opening (admittedly mostly off peak) the trains have been far from full. The connection to the Victoria Line should increase passenger numbers.

Sadly for those of us who still have a base south of the river, the link to Clapham Junction will not now open before the Olympics, but probably nearer the end of 2012. Funding for the extension has however been approved.

Chelsea talk and ordering books

2011-01-11T19:21:00.000Z

Last night's talk at Chelsea Old Town Hall went very well. A beautiful hall, full house (around 100 I reckon) and functioning equipment, although the awkward angle I had to adopt to speak audibly into the fixed microphone got taxing after a while. Afterwards I sold every book and publication I had brought. I could have sold twice the amount, but carrying bags full of heavy hardbacks on the rush hour tube is not something to be recommended.

I've only just noticed that while there is no discount on the new edition of Subterranean City on Amazon, my distributor Countryside Books is offering a 20% discount on their books if you order online.

The Music's All That Matters (Third Impression)

2011-01-09T17:59:00.000Z

Many of Stump's preferences (from the 'classic' 70s period) chime with my own: Egg are one of the most underrated groups from the time; King Crimson between Lark’s Tongue’s in Aspic and Red were making some of the most aggressive and exciting music of the period – I would love to have seen one of their largely improvised live shows at that time; Gentle Giant (at least up to Freehand) were one of the most musically arresting and diverse groups featuring counterpoint, polymetry, polyphony and hocketing (‘in which a phrase is arbitrarily broken up into cells of one, two or three notes’). He also gives space to more radical avant garde groups such as Henry Cow and includes the numerous European epigones like Focus and PFM.

I also share his positive opinion of early pastoral Genesis, that soon benefited so much from Steve Hackett’s more acerbic and effects-laden guitar, but his rubbishing of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (in my view this incarnation’s high point) I find inexplicable.

Like Stump, I still think that Relayer is the best Yes record, the one that even the most committed Yes-hater might possibly warm to; Patrick Moraz was a far more jazzy, hard-edged and risk-taking keyboard player than Rick Wakeman and some of the group playing on The Gates of Delirium sounds genuinely unhinged, (pity about Jon Anderson’s ‘arseholes’ mishearing on Sound Chaser). It was to be downhill from then on. A couple of years ago in Delft I bought a mint copy of Moraz’s 1976 solo project The Story of I in a wonderful gatefold sleeve, one of the most bonkers concept lps of the time with some interesting ‘world music’ influences.

For the future I would say, although Stump doesn't, that a form of Progressive pop is emerging from the likes of These New Puritans, Everything, Everything and Field Music; in the US Deerhoof have been doing it for a while and Guided by Voices used to say they played the 4 p's: Pop, Punk, Psychedelia and Prog.

The Music's All That Matters (Second Impression)

2011-01-09T17:56:00.003Z

I remember thinking around the mid-70s: ‘this Progressive rock is all well and good, but where are the new groups who aren’t made up of members of other bands, playing somewhere locally every now and then’ (I was too young for pub rock). Then, around 1977 there seemed to be hundreds of new groups competing for attention so I began to get into Siouxsie and the Banshees, Wire, XTC, Talking Heads, Television, The Fall and many more; the Progressive records gradually got banished further towards the back of the collection.

While punk didn’t immediately kill off prog as the mythology goes, it eventually rendered many of the mid-league groups redundant – by the early 80s the main players had either split or had decided to water down their music for the American FM market. Amongst the handful to retain any dignity were Peter Gabriel, Robert Fripp, Peter Hammill and Robert Wyatt. Stump justly lambastes the terrible decline of Genesis into ‘calculated music-by-focus-group tripe’ and the risible demise of ELP (the mere sight of the cover of Love Beach is enough to put you off listening) and the even more desperate Emerson, Lake and Powell. The shockingly feeble Sky also get a deserved drubbing - did John Williams' reputation ever recover? -I read fairly recently that he had just 'discovered' African guitar music.

The music press were obviously complicit in punk’s rise and prog’s demise, but many of the same writers had been fans previously. In the interests of ideological solidarity the fact that the Damned’s Captain Sensible and Rat Scabies were formerly huge fans of Soft Machine and PIL sonic sculptor Keith Levene had been Steve Howe’s guitar roadie were airbrushed out of the story at the time, although Johnny Rotten/Lydon famously played a track by Peter Hammill when asked to choose his favourite records on Capital Radio in 1977 (I was listening that evening and realised that maybe I should reconsider my opinion of punk). The fact of the matter is that the primary reason that prog largely disappeared by the early 80s is that the main surviving players were putting out crap records.

I knew that Steve Hillage played with Sham 69 and Robert Fripp with The Damned, but did Allan Holdsworth really get up on stage with Johnny Moped’s band in a Croydon pub?

The Music's All That Matters (First Impression)

2011-01-09T17:49:00.000Z

I’ve been reading one of my Christmas presents The Music’s All that Matters by Paul Stump (revised edition Harbour 2010), an engrossing examination of that most maligned thread in ‘rock’s rich tapestry’ Progressive Rock, or prog as it seems to be called these days. I have to confess that in my early teens, along with a large proportion of my male peers, this was my preferred listening from around 1971 to 1977 and I owned many of the records mentioned in the book. Memories were evoked of the soon-to-be-passed-around album (the most immediately recognisable being In the Court of the Crimson King) ostentatiously carried around school. It has to be added that during that time one or two school chums also introduced me to the Velvet Underground, Parliament/Funkadelic (I was in the stalls for their show at Hammersmith Odeon in December 1978 - what a riot that was) and dub reggae; things really weren’t as black and white as they were often subsequently painted.

Since the turn of the century my tastes have gravitated back to some of this music – there is somewhat less critical opprobrium heaped upon it these days and many groups I’ve heard have definitely been influenced by it, some of whom I like: bits of Mew, Jaga Jazzist, Sigur Ros, some I’m not so keen on: Muse, Radiohead, Elbow.

Stump’s analysis of many of the lps (Prog was ‘album music’ par excellence) is informed by musical knowledge and a familiarity with twentieth century classical composers, many of whom are new names to this reader. He also makes the point that the vast majority of rock ‘music critics’ then, as now, are woefully bereft of any technical knowledge of music and retained a preference for blues based tunes; even today most of them prefer to analyse the lyrics rather than tackle the thorny issue of how the music actually sounds or achieves its effects; from their ranks, possibly the late Steven Wells succeeded best in his manic metaphor and adjective strewn hyperbole, unfortunately the records he championed were invariably awful – Skunk Anansie anyone??

Stump also makes a good case for prog as the perfect musical form of postmodernism, especially in its 80s incarnation (I had jumped ship by then, never hearing the likes of Pallas, Twelfth Night or IQ, although I did go and see Marillion when I was bored one night in Rome in 1985 – whatever you may think of them, and I was never a fan, I suppose you have to admire their audacity for flying directly in the face of fashion). The effect of Live Aid in boosting the careers of many rock bands that had almost been written off at that point and concomitant rise of the cd also initiated the remaster/reissue industry, which kept the music business solvent for a couple more decades.

He charts the crossover into rave and ambient, principally by Steve Hillage and Gong and the far dodgier rise of New Age music to light an aromatherapy candle to. His in-depth knowledge of foreign prog has made me keen to hear some of the records, but experience has made me more resistant to many of their period charms. From his extensive list I’m interested in hearing Germany’s Anyone’s Daughter and Japan’s Mr Sirius.

There’s also an interesting, but probably superfluous, section on ‘Progressive telly’, obviously a personal obsession, mainly about children’s programmes, which featured pastoral, pagan and hippy themes, such as The Owl Service, Ace of Wands and Children of the Stones, which I remember and Sky and The Moon Stallion, which I don’t.

The best music books not only incorporate biography and analysis but also examine the business side of the equation and attempt to situate the musicians in their historical context. Stump emphasises the importance of the economic situation of the mid-seventies and the now largely forgotten fact that many British musicians and ‘celebrities’ were tax exiles, distancing them from their home fanbase – a crucial factor in the rise of punk. The increasing emphasis on technology meant that the bigger groups were locked into a ruinous circuit of acquisition of ever-more expensive and flashy equipment (especially keyboards), lighting rigs, and amplification for playing the huge stadia in the US market and spent longer periods of time in the studio honing their audio ‘masterpieces’. I recently read a quote from Kevin Godley saying that he and Lol Crème had been ensconced in the studio for so long creating their epic folie de grandeur Consequences that when they finally emerged in 1977 the musical landscape had totally changed and ‘everyone was wearing bondage trousers’; unsurprisingly the triple lp didn’t do well.

Bestsellers of 2010

2011-01-05T16:43:00.001Z

Had a look at the Nielson Top 100 Bestsellers for 2010 in Saturday’s Guardian and didn’t find it quite as depressing as the lists from recent years. Stieg Larsson and Stephanie Meyer dominate the fiction – I already suspected that from a quick scan of the reading matter on any London bus or tube carriage.

At least the celebrity ‘autobiography’ fad seems now to be finally fading (no sign of Jordan) and ‘misery memoirs’ are no longer bestsellers (there will undoubtedly be enough misery to come in 2011). Similarly the ‘interesting trivia’ collections such as Schott’s Miscellany also appear to be a thing of the past. I felt a warm glow of satisfaction when I read that Jeremy Clarkson doesn’t feature at all, a similar fate befell Chris Evans’ heavily hyped autobiography, although no doubt it shifted thousands more copies than the new edition of my book and he trousered a considerably larger advance. The appalling Russell Brand’s Booky Wook 2 (truly a comic for our times) scraped in at No.97 but still made over £1million.

What is depressing for me is that a mere 18% of the total consists of non-fiction and that small percentage includes cookery books and autobiographies; only one history book, by Bill Bryson, and nothing on science and religion. I have no idea of my own book sales over the last year but, if the past is anything to go by, my earnings next year will continue their downward trend – and I’m an author who actually occasionally ventures out of his study to promote them; 190 people attending a talk does not necessarily translate into good sales.

There is also the personally dispiriting experience of seeing my books far less often on the shelves of the nation’s few remaining bookshops than I did even one or two years ago. I can remember the exhilaration and pleasure that I derived from walking past a bookshop in, say, Fleet Street and spotting Subterranean City, shortly after publication, in the middle of the window display; many of these shops now no longer exist. Supermarkets aggressively market the same small group of bestsellers and booksellers such as Waterstones have drastically pruned their stock of titles that only sell a handful each year. Amazon demands such huge discounts that many smaller publishers can no longer deal with them. There still seems to be a life for small publishers targeting a niche market in limited editions, but times are only going to get tougher as the generations that no longer read books gain dominance; at least I don’t have to rely on my writing to survive, unlike some scribes I know.

Records of the Year

2010-12-30T12:14:00.000Z

From the huge amount of music released this year, only the tiniest fraction of which I actually heard, here are my favourites, in no particular order:

Field Music Measure
The Besnard Lakes ...Are the Roaring Night
Soundcarriers Celeste
Asaf Sirkis Trio Letting Go
Jane Weaver and Septieme Soeur The Fallen By Watch Bird
The Fall Your Future Our Clutter

Ghost story at Christmas

2010-12-25T18:50:00.000Z

Note to those at the BBC who made' Whistle and I'll come to you', starring John Hurt and shown last night on Christmas Eve. If you're basing a drama on a very well-known short story ('Oh whistle and I'll come to you my lad') by one of the masters of the genre M R James, it's probably best to use the most effective elements of that tale: namely the relentless pursuit over the groynes of the beach by a mysterious figure and the final terrifying manifestation inside the bedsheets. If the film bears very little relation to the story you might have considered giving it an alternative title and then made a decent version of the original. Given that the ancient whistle found on the site of a Templar preceptory plays a major part in the story (and the title) it might have been a good idea to include it, especially as it apparently helps to 'whistle up' the wind and the apparition.

As a modern day story about the relationship of an elderly couple and the perils of Alzheimer's and loneliness it was pretty standard ghostly fare, but it could have been so much more - changing his profession from an academic to an astronomer added nothing apart from a joke about that old confusion with astrology and detracted considerably from the antiquarian bent of James's best stories. When he was booked into a double bed I pretty much gave up hope of even a vaguely faithful retelling of one of my favourite ghost stories. Despite some atmospheric moments (taken from the film The Haunting), a great disappointment. I never thought I would say this, but I much preferred the Jonathan Miller black and white interpretation with Michael Hordern.

Addendum 30 December: see also 'Who is this who is coming?' on the feuilleton blog from the list opposite

Tonight on Yesterday they are showing an entire evening of Nazi Collaborators, including a documentary on someone who ran an extermination camp in Lithuania - Merry Christmas.

New Year Rising

2010-12-23T19:20:00.000Z

Once I am, hopefully, free of the midwinter torpor, I shall be able to make some plans for next year. The next event will be a talk for the Chelsea Society on Monday 10th January, snow and Southeastern trains permitting. A further underground-themed event may take place later in the year and perhaps one of my unpublished projects may finally see the light.

Storage

2010-12-17T12:28:00.000Z

An interesting article by Stewart Lee - seen him at Fall concerts but never spoken to him - on the accumulation of archives of books, records and cds. I know the problem, I'm currently debating whether to buy yet another Billy bookcase or cull my books so that I don't need to. One of the most thought-provoking art installations I ever visited was the one in an empty C&A in Oxford street where the artist Michael Landy systematically destroyed all his possessions - I went 3 times, including the final evening when the very last things got the chop. It's only comparatively recently that I've acquired a large number of cultural artefacts, many of the cds have been given to me - I would find it difficult to lose them, but not impossible, I would like to think.

Lee also makes the point that all these media can be held on a small portable device these days, if most young men even want books any more and that he feels impossibly old fashioned; I get this feeling increasingly these days. There will be a dying race insulated behind their stacks of books and records; who will bother acquiring them when they're gone? It also means that those, like me, who like to determine a stranger's tastes and personality by scanning their book and record shelves will have an increasingly frustrating time (Facebook 'favourites' are no substitute).

Bad Writing

2010-12-17T11:35:00.000Z

At this dark and gloomy time of the year I need something to cheer me up. I always derive schadenfreude from bad reviews (not of my own works of course, fortunately these are few - on the rare occasions when my books are reviewed). The new Christina Aguilera vehicle Burlesque seems to be this year's Christmas Turkey in the cinema (I watched Showgirls on telly a couple of years ago and it didn't seem as awful as I had been led to expect. although there were some choice scenes, mostly involving Kyle Maclachlan).

Probably my favourite book review is this one by Philip Henscher, makes me laugh every time; the book in question was heavily hyped in advance of publication and then disappeared rapidly. So intrigued was I that I went to a bookshop and leafed through it and indeed it was difficult to find a well written sentence anywhere within it.

I strive to ensure that my books are clearly written and I spend hours rewriting and proof reading, but errors always creep in, not always of my doing. Clearly I'm not alone in finding Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code the worst written bestseller I've ever read. Even the title really annoys me - art historians have always called him Leonardo and I've never heard of a 'symbologist'. The book is littered with incorrectly used words, poor grammar and the kind of sentences that would be rejected immediately in an evening class for aspiring writers. Mind you, he's done very well from it.

The bits that still stick in my mind are the occasion when someone at Scotland Yard picks up the phone and says, 'Hello, this is the London police' and the journey south from Biggin Hill airfield to London; it also seems to have been one of the first novels where the 'research' was pasted in from Wikipedia - see the description of the Louvre for example and don't get me started on the whole Templars, Holy Grail mish mash that overturned years of careful scholarship painstakingly debunking The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail construct. He also repeated the fallacy of millions of witches being executed in Europe in the middle ages which had been refuted by numerous academic works in the last 30 years.

Another writer who really irritated me when I read one of his novels was Colin Dexter: was it the use of 'hebdomodal' instead of 'weekly', or the sickening middle brow smugness of Inspector Morse as his eye roves his bookshelves and notes the intellectual tomes on display? I am not alone, as I've found on a site dedicated to poor penmanship. A contributor offers this from The Secret of Annexe 3:

"Soon the two friends were seated facing each other in the lounge bar, the surgeon resting his heavy-looking dolichocephalic skull upon his left hand.

But these minor worries could hardly compare with the consternation caused on the Monopoly front by a swift-fingered checker-out from a Bedford supermarket whose palm was so extraordinarily speedy in the recovery of the two dice thrown from the cylindrical cup that her opponents had little option but to accept, without ever seeing the slightest evidence, her instantaneously enunciated score, and then to watch helplessly as this sharp-faced woman moved her little counter along the board to whichever square seemed of the greatest potential profit to her entrepeneurial designs.

She could recall, quite certainly, clearing away after the soup course; picking up the supernumary spoons and forks that marked the place of that pusillanimous spirit from Solihull, Doris Arkwright; standing by in the kitchen as a Pork Normandy had slithered off its plate to the floor, to be replaced thither after a perfunctory wipe; drinking a third cocktail; dancing with the Lord High Executioner; eating two helpings of the gateau in the kitchen; dancing, in the dim light of the ballroom, a sort of chiaroscuro cha-cha-cha with the mysterious 'Rastafarian' - the latter having been adjudged the winner of the men's fancy-dress prize; telling Binyon not to be so silly when he'd broached the proposition of a brief dive beneath the duvet in her temporary quarters; drinking a fourth cocktail, the colour of which she could no longer recall; feeling slightly sick; walking up the stairs to her bedroom before the singing of 'Auld Lang Syne'; feeling very sick; and finally finding herself in bed."

That sentence would put Henry James to shame. More laughs can be had by reading Dexter's author blurb; it's because of that blurb that I keep my own short. I use it as a warning against pomposity.

Santa Con

2010-12-12T20:54:00.000Z

I got caught up in the Santa Con 'celebrations' in central London yesterday evening around Leicester Square. This relatively new phenomenon is yet another American import which involves hundreds of people, mainly young, dressing up as Father Christmas, getting very drunk and shouting and singing in large groups in public places. It gets a mention in my Folklore of London book in Scott Wood's epilogue - I've personally witnessed it three times now, I admire the spirit of anarchism but with the recent events in central London I wonder whether the police took a stronger stance with the revellers this year.

SF

2010-12-12T20:18:00.000Z

I read quite a bit of science fiction earlier this year. My favourites were Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds and Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatskii, the latter of course was filmed in 1979 as Stalker by Tarkovsky. Got it out from the library after reading the book and was very impressed - ok it was slow, but some of the images were stunning - especially the slow tracking shot over the water-covered floor towards the end. A moving documentary in the extras revealed that almost everyone involved with the film is dead. Thought the whole basic idea of Roadside Picnic was great - what if a vastly powerful intergalactic race just stopped off here for a quick break but left behind a contaminated area containing a collection of stunning technological wonders and deadly traps?

Obviously a lot of Ballard was devoured as well this year. For this reader much 'classic; science fiction seems very dated now or is so badly written that I just can't get into it - I wish it could be better. Apart from JGB the only other great writer I can think of in this genre is William Gibson or Burroughs if you count some of his stuff as SF - M John Harrison can also be included and mustn't forget Christopher Priest (another Hastings resident). Philip K Dick's ideas and outlook are fascinating, but I've found some of his books hard going - A Scanner Darkly is great, I thought The Man in the High Castle overrated. In some ways H G Wells has never been surpassed.

Worst book for me was one that has been voted best SF novel of all time in some places - Enders Game by Orson Scott Card - I think I'm probably 30 years too old for its thinly disguised right wing politics and queasy pseudo-mysticism that reminded me too much of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Winding down for 2010

2010-12-10T12:41:00.000Z

Woke up last Wednesday to the thickest snow I have ever seen in Hastings (or the south east of England for that matter) - a foot high on the wall outside my study. Photo above taken from our front window. After a frustrating train trip (5 trains in 4 hours) last Friday I got to London for work. On my return on Saturday evening (3 trains in 4 hours) the snow had been washed away by heavy rain. The Wealds of Kent and Sussex received the worst weather.

In 2011 I intend to start up a further blog devoted to one topic and I'll try to get a few event ideas under way for the spring and summer. Any new writing will either go into the blogs or may end up in small one-off projects, given that I don't have the amount of concentrated writing time I once enjoyed.

Crossrail on Display

2010-11-27T13:38:00.000Z

There is an exhibition on at the Building Centre Store Street, off Tottentham Court Road showing the designs for the Crossrail stations, plus a very large and snazzy model of London outlining the route and stations. I went yesterday, but if you can't get there have a look at the London Reconnections site where many of the pictures are on display. There is much talk in the exhibition of 'regeneration' and 'urban quarters' around many stations but a fair amount of demolition has also been involved. Nevertheless some of the designs, especially Canary Wharf, look impressive.

Patrick Keiller

2010-11-21T19:31:00.000Z

To the BFI Southbank (I hadn't realised it had changed its name from the NFT, but I haven't been for some years) to see Robinson in Ruins followed by a panel discussion. This article in yesterday's Guardian explains the background much more eloquently than I can. I managed to book the very last ticket online on Friday and the film started just after I finished work.

I liked it, but I preferred the previous two films. I must say I loved Paul Schofield's narration and found Vanessa Redgrave's less engaging, also on this occasion I felt that the camera lingered just that little too long on the locations, especially in the agricultural scenes - the lack of people was very noticeable and I'm sure deliberate, making a point about the industrialised countryside. In most locations, together with birdsong and sounds of rustling undergrowth, there was the almost omnipresent noise of aircraft or traffic.

As usual there was a great deal of useful if often depressing information and statistics about defence establishments, the amount of cereals used as animal feed, evidence for global warming and species extinction, but the kind of arcane connections made in the first two films were less in evidence here. The panel discussion at the end never really got a chance to get going as there were too many participants (including Doreen Massey and Patrick Wright) who would have been good value on their own and too little time. Apparently a book based on the film's 'research project' is on the way, written by members of the panel.

London Jazz Festival

2010-11-20T14:44:00.000Z

To The Forge in Camden last night to see Troyka, part of the London Jazz Festival, described by Time Out as, ‘King Crimson for the iPod generation’, a tag I imagine the band feel a little uncomfortable about. The three-piece look very young, especially the drummer, but they play with considerable skill and imagination. The prog rock comparisons are clear from the tricksy, constantly shifting time signatures and spinning-on-the-heel changes of mood and tempo.

There are definite echoes of Robert Fripp’s accelerated arpeggios in some of Chris Montague’s constantly inventive guitar playing but the guitarists he cites as influences - Wayne Krantz and Marc Ducret - I’m not familiar with; I heard Marc Ducret on the radio recently, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard Krantz. Kit Downes provides an unusual backing on organ, only rarely soloing, on occasions Mike Ratledge seems to stand at his shoulder. It got ‘rockier’ as the evening progressed and they did a cover of Nirvana’s Heart Shaped Box; I’d go to see them again. A waiter (the manager?) said to me afterwards that the usual gigs there are not as 'hardcore', more supper jazz - give me the hardcore.

Often grouped together with the Portico Quartet and Troyka by critics, Polar Bear played at Westminster Reference Library last Saturday and I got to see their first set before having to get the train home – the second set was a collaboration with a rapper. Still interesting stuff, although I prefer seeing them live to listening to their records, there are long improvised sections where they can get pretty ‘far out’.

More music next week: Gilad Atzmon in Hastings on Monday and The Fall in Bexhill on Wednesday.

The Mystery of Subterranean Selfridge’s

2010-11-16T20:29:00.000Z

At the talk for the South East London Folklore Society last week an audience question came up yet again about the existence of a perfectly preserved Victorian street of shops somewhere beneath Oxford Street. I think that the first time this came to my notice was when I was asked about it by Robert Elms during my first appearance on his radio show c.2001; at the time I honestly professed to know nothing about it and the whole thing seemed pretty absurd to me. It has since resurfaced (so to speak) on numerous occasions. I did say at the SELFS talk that I would look into this tale one more time and put my findings on the blog. The result has turned out to be more interesting than I might have thought.

Searching on the internet you can find a number of threads devoted to this topic. On one for example someone poses the question:

Does anybody know anything about the supposed Victorian High Street underneath the present Oxford Street? Evidently Oxford St was raised up years ago but there is a tunnel underneath where the original cobbled road still stands and the part [sic] facias of Victorian shops. Or is this just an urban myth?

In my Folklore of London book (2008) I wrote this [original text not the edited published version]:

‘Viewers of the 1991 Channel 4 Christmas Special The Ghosts of Oxford Street, directed and narrated by Malcolm McLaren were treated to a rare sight: behind a door in the basement of Selfridges there survives a complete underground Victorian street, perfectly preserved, with period frontages intact, supposedly lying directly beneath the modern street above. This piece of trickery has since entered London’s subterranean folklore and references to it continue to appear in magazines and on websites.’ My information was taken from various discussions about the film on the internet; perhaps naively I assumed that one or two of these participants had actually viewed it.

At the time that I was writing my folklore book I tried to obtain a copy of The Ghosts of London but it was not out on dvd and did not appear on You Tube or anything similar; nobody I knew had recorded it. Last week, however, another audience member told me that it could now be seen on 4od, Channel 4’s tv on demand website. So yesterday I finally managed to see this intermittently entertaining former rarity (with a ridiculous performance from Leigh Bowery) on my laptop and guess what? I cannot find the scene filmed in a preserved street of Victorian shops under Oxford Street.

Selfridge’s certainly features heavily (the whole of part 2 of the 54 minute film is devoted to it) and there is a scene where Tom Jones dressed in Edwardian [?] costume (as Gordon Selfridge presumably) descends on an escalator to a floor of the store where the staff are dressed in period clothes – Twenties-looking to me, although the displays and products are modern. Other scenes take place inside Regency/Victorian rooms or sets or outside modern Oxford Street shops.

The main candidate must be the section on Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859), played by John Altman, filmed in what looks like a set dressed to signify decadent dilapidation – it may be intended to represent shops as an obviously non-authentic sign reads ‘Boots apothecary’. There are however no ‘perfectly preserved’ Victorian shop fronts, nothing to indicate that it lies beneath Selfridge's and, owing to the camera position, no view of a cobbled street. On the same thread mentioned above another contributor claims that:

‘John Altman who played Nick Cotton in Eastenders… was in a bit of the film apparently actually under Oxford Street where there still exists part of this Victorian Street…He claimed Malcolm McLaren let him through a hole in the basement of Selfridges.’

In another scene the present-day (1991) McLaren chases an actor playing his younger self into the Eisenhower Centre secure storage facility in Chenies Street. The boy descends in an old-fashioned ‘cage’ lift to a dimly lit tunnel that could be part of the former deep level shelter beneath Goodge Street tube station (you can also hear a tube train in the background, although this could have been added in post-production). Security Archives appear in the credits, so it seems that this sequence was filmed within that facility.

By a strange coincidence the deep level shelter was used by Eisenhower (in his capacity as Supreme Commander of COSSAC, later absorbed into SHAEF) and his officers for a period during the Second World War, after he had rejected an annexe of Selfridge’s at No.14 Duke Street W1 - ‘a sizeable steel and concrete structure blessed with deep basements running 45 feet down’ - which later housed the SIGSALY code-scrambling computer.

It should also be borne in mind that the now defunct Mail Rail/Post Office Railway (opened 1927, closed 2003) runs around 70 feet down, just to the north of the section of Oxford Street on which Selfridge’s stands. The Central line, opened as the Central London Railway from Bank to Shepherd’s Bush on 30th July 1900, also runs under the bustling thoroughfare. All the above is covered in my book Subterranean City, beneath the streets of London.

My copy of The Twopenny Tube by Bruce & Croome (1996) says on p23: ‘The large store of Harry Gordon Selfridge was being built near Bond Street station in 1908 and opened on 15th March 1909. Selfridge used many innovative marketing initiatives, but his suggestion that Bond Street station be renamed Selfridge’s was cold shouldered by the railway.’

If you think about it logically, had this street really managed to survive intact, it is incredible that it has not been opened to the public as an attraction or 'vintage retail experience' – especially given its hugely busy and tourist-heavy location.

I have never had a behind-the-scenes tour of Selfridge’s myself, but a reporter from Time Out who has, certainly did not uncover anything unusual, although it’s interesting that while she makes no mention of the ‘preserved street’ she does refer to an alleged ‘abandoned tube station’ (article posted on the Time Out website on 10 November 2006):

‘We start by heading down into the basements. Myths abound about this subterranean world and, sadly, most of them are just that. There is no abandoned tube station, though Selfridge did lobby to get an underground tunnel built from Bond Street station up into the store – and have the station renamed ‘Selfridges’. Neither was there a river running through it – though there was an artesian well that served the building for years.

There are two levels of basement beneath the lower-ground shop floor: the ‘sub’ and the ‘sub-sub’, descending 60 metres below street level. These are split into two more areas: the dry sub and sub-sub, and their ‘wet’ equivalents. The wet area, more dank than watery, is beneath the original building, while the dry is under the rear building, known as the SWOD (after the four streets – Somerset, Wigmore, Orchard and Duke – that once enclosed it).

During WWII, the SWOD’s basement was used by 50 soldiers from the US Army Signal Corps; there were even visits from Eisenhower and Churchill. The building had one of the only secure telex lines, was safe from bombing, and was close to the US Embassy on Grosvenor Square. According to Jarvis, a tunnel was built from Selfridges to the embassy so that personnel could move between the two in safety. Interrogation cells for prisoners were hewn from the uneven space available.’

With reference to the last two sentences, do we have another folkloric ‘secret tunnel’ to add to the hundreds supposedly under London? This is the first time I have seen reference to a tunnel from Selfridge’s to the American Embassy, but as it was constructed during wartime, as many other similar tunnels and shelters were, it cannot be dismissed totally. Perhaps when the American Embassy site is vacated in 2017 more details will come to light.

Could this now firmly established piece of subterranean folklore be based on a misremembering of a small part of the Ghosts of Oxford Street that was, as far as I know, only shown on the one occasion in 1991; the urban legend does not appear to predate that year (Robert Elms asked me about it ten years later). The film had not subsequently been readily available on video or dvd (although some people must have taped it presumably?) so this fascinating misinterpretation (possibly coupled with the John Altman comment –if indeed that was ever actually said - or deliberate misinformation from the arch-prankster and former Situationist McLaren) became known through word of mouth, programmes such as the Robert Elms show and the internet? I shall have to go with this theory for now.

Talks, Talks

2010-11-13T11:37:00.000Z

Thursday night's talk for the South East London Folklore Society in the Old King's Head near London Bridge station went pretty well - I was on in the first half talking about stuff in the new book and Scott Wood went on after a short break to speak about urban legends and a bit about ghosts. Again, a very good turnout of around 60 people, only 2 books bought, but luckily that was all I had with me.

Another talk request has been received which I have agreed to do: the Chelsea Society in the Small Hall of Chelsea Old Town Hall on Monday 10th January 2011 kicking off at 18.30. The venue looks beautiful and large, if the usual numbers turn up it should be able to accommodate them.

On Wednesday heard Prof Ronald Hutton deliver the talk 'How Pagan were English Medieval Peasants?' at the Warburg Institute. The answer was 'scarcely at all' according to all the evidence thus far available, the cult of saints making up for the panoply of pagan gods until the Reformation. He is a great speaker and indomitable question taker, his books on calendar customs and his peerless history of modern witchcraft The Triumph of the Moon are invaluable for anyone with an interest in these areas. He kindly signed my copies before his talk.

L T C Rolt

2010-11-08T19:07:00.000Z

Interesting programme this morning on Radio 4 about the writer L T C Rolt, whose works I've consulted for background information on the history of engineering for Subterranean City - lucid and entertaining, they are a great introduction for non-experts like myself. He also helped revive Britain's waterways, wrote the classic book on train crashes Red for Danger and one of my favourite ghost stories The Bosworth Summit Pound.

Battle Bonfire

2010-11-07T18:36:00.000Z

To Battle last night to witness the Battle bonfire parade. Every teenager in Sussex seemed to be there, in various states of inebriation. We stood outside the Yesterday's World museum and got a pretty good view of proceedings. Our previous experience of the Sussex bonfire societies has been at Hastings and Rye and I hadn't realised that these are relatively sedate and peaceful compared with Battle, which I imagine is very similar to the famous Lewes event on November 5th - I've never had a chance to get to that one - not sure I want to now (someone was seriously injured there on Friday night).

I'm no fan of loud bangs and there were enough deafening explosions during the parade last night to give me a powerful impression of the Blitz in London - you could actually feel the percussive effect on your body, fortunately I had some earplugs - amazingly our son slept through the whole thing. The usually sedate town is an excellent place to see the parade as the streets are wide and there are plenty of places to get a good vantage point - the centre with the 'token' bonfire with a guy was a mob scene. Hastings Old Town is a bit too narrow and confined to get the full effect, I noticed this year that there were a lot fewer flaming brands than in previous years, not the case at Battle where they made an impressive display. The atmosphere of potential anarchy was exciting, but we went to the Senlac Inn by the station when the parade entered the battlefield (site of the 1066 encounter) as we had had enough explosions for one year - the display itself was remarkably muted. We made our way back past the cars abandoned by their owners when they realised that the road through Battle was closed for the night.

Lost Steps

2010-11-07T18:06:00.000Z

My friend Phil Baker was interviewed for the excellent Resonance FM programme Lost Steps last week - the results can be found here - he mainly talks about Austin Osman Spare, artist and occultist - I own a work by him - there is an exhibition of his work at the Cuming Museum for a few more days, which I don't think I'm going to be able to get to. it was featured in this recent Culture Show profile featuring the great Alan Moore. Phil's books on absinthe, Dennis Wheatley and William Burroughs are also recommended.

I was featured earlier this year on Lost Steps and the interview may still be up on the site, many of the other interviews are well worth hearing. I have not been particularly impressed by my interviews (my performance, not the interviewer's), but this is one of the better ones despite my repetitive inarticulacy.

The Social Network

2010-11-05T17:13:00.000Z

We made out annual trip to the Hastings Odeon this week to see The Social Network, which I thought was great - witty, sharp script, good perfomances, especially from Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg and even from Justin Timberlake as Napster founder Sean Parker. I probably need to see it again on dvd to catch some of the rapid-fire dialogue that I missed in the cinema. The obvious central irony of the film is that the man who invented the world's most popular social networking site offering the possibility of making hundreds of 'friends' has few of his own and those he had are taking him to court for a part of his multi-billion dollar empire. And nobody pulls out a gun during the entire two hours - very unusual these days in a Hollywood film.

Hadrian's Wall

2010-10-29T18:34:00.001+01:00

Just returned from a jaunt to Northumbria and Hadrian’s Wall. Weather was pretty much lovely throughout, which was a surprise – the owner of the caravan site where we stayed said it gets down to -20C in the winter and they often get snowed in for weeks at a time. The site, Fallowfield Dene (thoroughly recommended and cheap), used to be a lead mine and our caravan stood next to a large spoil heap – today covered in trees and vegetation and looking very pretty.

The main point of the break was to see Hadrian’s Wall and we explored a variety of sections and their Roman remains: Corbridge, Chesters, Birdoswald and the most spectacularly situated Housesteads – half a mile from the car park along a pretty steep track it should be noted. The walk from Housesteads westwards along one of the best preserved sections, where it snakes along the contours of the ridges, is probably one of the finest in England, although we could only manage a couple of miles having to carry our two-year-old son – the light rain produced rainbows in the sunshine and the whole scene was impossibly beautiful.

I thought the best Roman site that we visited was not one of the English Heritage places but Vindolanda, a short distance from the wall, sited on the earlier Stanegate. It is the most heavily excavated with really impressive ruins of a fort and associated buildings; the magical dell with recreated temple at the far end was a pleasant surprise. The museum, while old-fashioned in layout, had many interesting and unusual artefacts, particularly the well-preserved leather and textiles which I’ve never before seen in such quantities. The world-famous Vindolanda Tablets are kept at the British Museum and none could be seen here, which was a pity, although there was an extensive display about their discovery and contents. Just down the lane outside stands the only Roman milestone in its original position.

We also had a day in Newcastle: first we went to the Laing Art Gallery, where strangely there was a display of work by David Jones, a poet and artist I had been reading about recently and wondering where I could see some of his work – most of it was on loan from the Tate. There are also two classic Burne-Jones paintings and Holman Hunt’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil.

The Hancock Museum nearby houses the contents of the former Museum of Antiquities, mainly from the Wall. The best section for me was the recreated Mithraeum from Carrawburgh, which we had visited a couple of days previously – the carving of Mithras being born from the Cosmic Egg with some of the earliest depictions of the astrological signs was fascinating. I have visited Mithraea in many parts of the Western Empire – if only the sad remains in London could be re-housed more sensitively and with a suitably numinous atmosphere. The whole trip made me realise that Hadrian’s Wall and its associated forts probably provide the most important group of Roman remains in Britain.

Cocteau and Hallogallo

2010-10-29T17:57:00.000+01:00

Last Monday’s screening of Blood of a Poet by Jean Cocteau at St Mary’s in the Castle Hastings was a great success in my opinion. The screen was as large as a full-size cinema and the projection quality and sound were great. About 50 people were there, more than I had expected; apparently only 8 tickets were sold in advance, one to me. Steven Severin provided a ‘live’ soundtrack with his Powerbook which, despite my initial reservations, fitted well with the bizarre images. I had not seen this film before and it still impresses after all these years: the image of the talking mouth superimposed on a hand is famous and I finally realised the origin of the still used on the sleeve of a Rip Rig and Panic single I once owned. Lee Miller, Surrealist muse, major photographer and wife of Roland Penrose puts in an appearance – they lived near the Downs in Sussex and I believe their house is sometimes open to visitors – I must investigate. Met Severin briefly outside afterwards when he was having a smoke – he signed a cd I bought of the soundtrack – told him how much I loved The Scream; it’s great that events like this are taking place in Hastings.

On Thursday night I hurried along to the Barbican after work to catch Hallogallo 2010, a trio consisting of Michael Rother on guitar and electronics, Steve Shelley (drummer in Sonic Youth who I used to see very often in the 1980s) and Aaron Mullen on bass. It was billed as ‘Michael Rother and friends present the music of Neu’, although I only fully recognised one Neu song (Hallogallo itself) - I read later that they also played Fur Immer and Negativland, I believe some Harmonia music was in there as well. Nevertheless the Neu incessant motorik beat was ubiquitous throughout and it was exciting to hear this music played live and at a reasonably loud volume – someone kept shouting out to turn the guitar up, which Rother obligingly did.

Rother looks in remarkably good nick for a 60-year-old – I can’t imagine they (original drummer Klaus Dinger died in 2008) played live much over here in the 1970s, if at all, but their music has gradually become very influential on a number of rock groups. In my naivety I assumed, when I used to go to early Stereolab concerts, that the monotonous driving two chord sound was all their own – imagine my surprise when I heard the first Neu lp some years later. Neu’s music is timeless - my own favourite is probably the second lp even though most of the second side consists of slowed down and speeded up versions of the pieces on the first side – the second song seems to have invented the Jesus and Mary Chain 10 years early. Last week Rother introduced a number of ambient sections, but the drums soon re-entered, Shelley doing sterling work at bashing away relentlessly. The guitar was much more ‘rocky’ and overdriven than on the records - one of the interesting features of the originals is the relatively self-effacing guitar sound and I imagine some members of the audience might have had problems with that; I did, but I got used to it fairly quickly. This was after all a modern interpretation of the music and these days Rother seems to favour a heavier approach.

Support was from Seefeel, although I suppose Stereolab would have been the (too) obvious choice – only caught 15 minutes of their set – the live sampled guitar seemed a bit old hat now. I used to love their cd Quique in the early 90s but never got to see them live.

The Rings of Saturn

2010-10-17T19:45:00.000+01:00

I recently finished reading The Rings of Saturn by the late W G Sebald, a book I had seen referred to on many occasions, but which I've only just got around to looking at. It's a wonderful read, not as heavy-going as I had expected, dealing with weighty and often depressing topics in a detached and quizzical way: it's basically a travel diary around the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts, with disquisitions on numerous topics, some of which I am already interested in such as Swinburne's life and other which I was introduced to, such as the history of silk cultivation and aspects of Chinese history. Many of the places mentioned we have visited over the last few years - he made Lowestoft sound as dismal as we found it - also the magic of Dunwich which has largely disappeared into the sea. Highly recommended.

Robinson in Ruins

2010-10-16T15:38:00.000+01:00

I notice from the BFI London Film Festival brochure that Patrick Keiller has made a third film featuring his character 'Robinson' - Robinson in Ruins. His other films London and Robinson in Space are essential viewing for anyone interested in the politcal, economic and aesthetic landscape of Britain in the last thirty years or so. This new film apparently follows its predecessors in fixing the camera's gaze for a number of minutes at one scene, while the witty and erudite narrator puts it into context. As the previous narrator Paul Scofield is no longer with us, Vanessa Redgrave has taken his place. I won't be able to get to the screenings at the festival but I hope I can catch the film somewhere when it emerges briefly into cinemas.

In a similar vein, the latest book by Owen Hatherley A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain looks like it will have to be added to my reading list for the next month - his entertaining blog is amongst the list opposite.

Subterranean City Talks

2010-10-16T14:36:00.000+01:00

A busy couple of days, with a talk for the Camden Local History Society at Burgh House Hampstead on Thursday night and another for the Stuart Low Trust in Upper Street Islington on Friday night. The last date of this tour will be on Thursday 11th November at the South East London Folklore Society. I shall not be delivering the same talk that I have at previous events as I'm also speaking with Scott Wood, who wrote the final section of the Folklore of London book; I would imagine the talk will centre around the folklore of underground London.

Over 60 people turned up on Thursday at what is probably my favourite venue for a talk: a lovely room, fully operational equipment, no microphone required and a lectern with a light - luxury. Friday was quite a contrast, although very well organised, around 50 people I would say; afterwards amidst the barrage of questions I briefly met some interesting people: one had worked on the demolition of the Took's Court entrance to 'Kingsway' and another, by strange coincidence, worked in the office block that was built in its place. Another elderly man had worked on the underground and had visited such ghost stations as York Road.

Incidentally, another man was rather annoyed that I hadn't mentioned the fact that York Road abandoned tube station was an air raid shelter during the war and had received a bomb down the lift shaft - I said I knew nothing about this and was he sure he had the correct station, to which he replied emphatically 'yes'. I checked today and there is no record of any such incident occurring, in fact York Road is probably the only abandoned station that wasn't used as a shelter. I've found at these type of events, when you can be put on the spot, that the questioners are often not as well apprised of the facts as they think they are, but it's difficult to know for sure in some cases unless you check it out later, so you sometimes end up looking as if you don't know what you're talking about; fortunately this doesn't happen too often.

Hastings Jazz

2010-10-07T18:33:00.000+01:00

For a few years now a jazz club has been running on the first Monday of the month at the Hastings and St Leonards Angling Association on the seafront. Although I own a few jazz records and cds I've never been a huge fan and hadn't gone to many jazz concerts. What's good about the UK jazz scene is that it's still a minority interest - most musicians, even quite well known names, have to play in small clubs.

The Hastings club is a good size, most times you can get a seat with a table and the drinks are cheap - entrance was £5.00 but recently went up to £7.00. I've seen quite a few shows here: John Etheridge, Don Weller, Greg Abate, Jamie Cullum's band (without their leader), Steve Grossman (one of the many Miles Davis sidemen), Gwilym Simcock, Liam Noble, Byron Wallen, the late Bheki Mseleku and many more.

The best for me have been: a riproaring gig with Alan Barnes and Guy Barker, the adventurous Robert Mitchell trio, Gilad Atzmon and Polar Bear who were one of the few bands to use electronics and live sampling. A lot of the crowd is pretty elderly and traditional in their tastes, so the most packed houses are for bebop and post-bop musicians playing standards.

The gig on Monday by the Asaf Sirkis Trio was excellent, but not as well-attended as most of the shows there, probably because the music was much more rock influenced. Guitarist Tassos Spiliotopoulos was very impressive, coming up with some imaginative solos that would switch effortlessly from jazz runs to out and out rock playing. His plangent arpeggios hanging in the air, with much use of a chorus pedal and volume control, were not that far removed from Robin Guthrie's guitar sound in the Cocteau Twins. Asaf Sirkis is an amazing drummer - Bill Bruford has sung his praises - he can provide a subtle backing with brushes or pound away on the kit like Keith Moon - he also writes all the songs. Standout songs for me were 'Life itself' with a mesmerising circular bass line and 'Letting go' the title song of the new cd.

End of the Pier

2010-10-07T18:15:00.000+01:00

It was very sad that Hastings pier was destroyed by fire on Tuesday morning. Around midday I looked out of the window and it seemed very foggy - didn't realise it was smoke - a helicopter was hovering over the pier but I thought that a boat might be in trouble. It was only when I turned on the radio that I heard what had happened on the news - we hadn't heard anything during the night.

Before it closed in 2006 I liked walking along the promenade and then out over the sea to the end of the pier - the view when you looked back was spectacular. The ballroom at the end also hosted some famous gigs: The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Hawkwind, The Sex Pistols - I saw a great show by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds there a few years back.

I walked past it last week and actually thought at the time 'this is an arson attack waiting to happen' - it was very easy to get on to the pier despite some fencing and there have been a number of unfortunate precedents around our coast. At least the arsonists appear to have been caught. Sadly, Hastings has an unusually high number of stupid residents and a stupid number of high residents thanks to the pervasive drug culture, a hangover from the Thatcherite policy of 'decanting' troublesome families and the long-term unemployed to its B&Bs in the 1980s. The fabric of the town has definitely been improved over the last few years, so this is a major setback. If only a multi-millionaire would step in and fund a rebuilding.

Ayrton, Stross and Crowley

2010-10-02T14:50:00.001+01:00

I’ve recently become interested in the art of Michael Ayrton (1921-1975). His Minotaur was once a powerful brooding sculptural presence in Postman’s Park near the Museum of London, where I worked for a while in the 1980s; during my lunch break on sunny days I would sometimes sit in this haven of peace in the City. Iain Sinclair writes about it in his essay ‘Bulls and Bears and Mithraic misalignments: Weather in the City’. Then, some years ago it disappeared - too off-putting for the lunching workers? I’ve now discovered its current whereabouts and intend to track it down in its new lair as soon as I have the time.

While dipping in to Justine Hopkins Michael Ayrton: a Biography (1994) I came across the following passage (p86):
‘Cecil [Gray, composer and music critic] had known the Great Beast himself, Aleister Crowley, in the days of his power, and on one occasion introduced him to Michael, although the latter was little impressed by the bloated, boastful charlatan that Crowley had become since his fatal experiments in Paris. He was, however, the cause of a confrontation between the Beast and Barnett Stross, GP, MP and white wizard. Hearing through Cecil that Crowley had some particularly inventive and unpleasant devilry in mind he protested violently, and summoned Stross to the battle across the aether with his dark counterpart. Stross apparently triumphed, and Crowley threatened revenge on Michael in no uncertain terms; the fact that no disaster befell him only went to confirm the scepticism which was an essential part of his involvement with the spirit world.’

Ayrton and Stross were friends, the artist using the potteries as subject matter, in particular an old marl pit near Stross’s house, where he used to stay. Stross [quoted on p89] wrote that it was, ‘a dumping ground for old shards. Beneath the crockery there is a colony of rats, for when the potters empty and tip into this hole there is often food in the way of bread mixed up with the fragments. [Stross] took Michael to see this place one summer evening before dusk, and he saw the rats come up for an airing. Little ones and large ones, brown and badger and some were scabrous…He took Constant Lambert to see it, and Constant was very frightened…he thought no painter could paint such a subject and do it justice.’ The resulting oil painting ‘The Tip, Hanley’, executed in 1946, is in the collections of Stoke-on-Trent Museums; another work ‘The White Country’ painted the previous year is listed in a 1978 catalogue published by the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery as ‘Present whereabouts unknown; formerly in the collection of Sir Barnett Stross MP’.

Sir Barnett Stross does not appear in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. According to his Times obituary (15 May 1967 p12) he had enjoyed a distinguished career. Born in 1899, he was brought to Britain by his Polish political refugee parents at the end of the First World War. He got a degree in medicine at Leeds and started practice as a GP in the Potteries in 1926 – he became an expert on diseases associated with pottery workers, such as silicosis and warned of the danger of contracting lung cancer from smoking. In 1930 he joined the Labour party and at the 1945 election he was elected MP for Stoke on Trent’s Hanley division.

During the Second World War, the building in which he was giving a lecture for the Ministry of Food received a direct hit and Stross was later pulled out from the rubble seriously injured. He was the founder of the movement which rebuilt Lidice (now in the Czech Republic); the village was destroyed and its population massacred by the Germans in 1942 in reprisal for the murder of Reinhard Heydrich – for this he was honoured by the Czech government.

According to his entry in Wikipedia:
‘Two years after Stross' death, the Czech intelligence defector Josef Frolik named him as having been an agent of Czechoslovakia. According to Frolik, Stross (code-named "Gustav") had provided "interesting information about the domestic and foreign policies of the Labour Party while it was in opposition". Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsay's book "Smear! Wilson and the Secret State" [p194] claims that such information as Stross supplied could have been obtained by writing to Transport House (the headquarters of the Labour Party)’.

Apart from the dubious claims that Stross was a Czech agent, I have found no other reference so far to his other secret life as a ‘white wizard’. None of the biographies of Crowley that I have consulted contain Stross’s name in the index. Crowley did frequent the Café Royal, as did Michael Ayrton and Cecil Gray according to the biography quoted above, so it is possible that Stross and Ayrton met him there.

Ayrton was also, according to the Birmingham catalogue quoted above (p11) part of a 'mystical circle' that included, 'Barnet [sic] Stross, Freda Cavell, James Laver and...Margery Livingstone' [another misspelled person who must be Marjorie Livingston,a psychic who apparently wrote books received clairaudiently, one from Apollonius of Tyana]. According to his autobiography Museum Piece (1963, p228), Laver, an art and fashion historian, Keeper of the Dept of Illustration, Engraving and Design at the V & A and author of a biography of Nostradamus, visited Crowley in his Hastings boarding house (he writes about witnessing him injecting heroin) so it is conceivable that other members of the group met the Great Beast, but the Ayrton connection may just be lazy research or wishful thinking. [I knew of Laver from his Whistler biography but I hadn't realised that he also wrote a biography of Huymans entitled The First Decadent]

Such was the notoriety of Crowley during his lifetime that many writers have attempted to spice up their autobiographies and biographies of contemporaries with alleged encounters with the Great Beast. Master of Villainy, the biography of Sax Rohmer written by his wife Elisabeth and Cay van Ash, states that the two met, although again I can find no other independent evidence for this; Rohmer was not a member of the Golden Dawn despite claims in some books to the contrary. Perhaps in the future more will emerge about Sir Barnett Stross, but I am more interested in the fate of ‘The White Country’.

Addendum: On 14th October I did a book signing at Atlantis Books. While I was there I thought I would ask proprietor Geraldine Beskin, an acknowledged authority on AC, about the Stross connection. I showed her a photocopy from the book, but she knew nothing about it - she also thought it was of dubious veracity.