Events in Hastings

There are some interesting events taking place in Hastings over the next couple of weeks - frustratingly I won't be able to go to any of them.  This weekend sees the first Ingrid Pitt Queen of Horror Festival (I think this is the official site).  There are some impressive guests including James Herbert, who I have to confess was a writer I read far too much as a teenager and the gorgeous Madeline Smith.

Less well publicised is the Black Huts Festival run by a local publisher and featuring Iain Sinclair who remains one of my favourite writers, many of his chums will be there as well.  I sometimes feel that there are too many events down here, but the most irritating thing is that the few I really want to go to nearly always take place when I have other commitments.

Bun Ceremony Under Threat

The latest Folklore Society newsletter contains some bad news regarding one of London's most unusual and interesting annual commemorations, which takes place every Good Friday at the Widow's Son pub in Bromley-by-Bow.  On this occasion a sailor from the Royal Navy places a bun in a net above the bar containing the buns from previous ceremonies; it commemorates the hot cross buns a widow is said to have baked every year in a cottage on that spot in the hope that her son would return home from sea, sadly he never did.  The legend can be found in my Folklore of London book amongst other places and there is an earlier post devoted to it.

It now appears that the pub has been bought by a property developer who wants to turn most of the building into the inevitable apartments ('luxury' no doubt).  The local newspaper covered it here.  It would be a very sad thing to see yet another pub-related piece of folklore vanish - when I was writing my folklore book I was dismayed to discover how many pubs had totally disappeared, been converted to flats or had stopped ceremonies and commemorations that in some cases went back many years.

Easy Money?

An interesting post in Robert Fripp's online diary, wherein he outlines his present financial situation and muses on the lot of the modern musician trying to earn a crust.  It seems that today everyone is trying to exploit the internship/work-for-nothing trend, including touring musicians who don't want to pay their backing groups (see the link in the diary entry).  Fripp is someone I've long admired, one of the most creative, innovative and talented musicians to have emerged from the world of 'rock'.  I've particularly enjoyed attending some of his 'soundscape/Frippertronics' performances (usually free), an especially memorable one was held in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall a few years ago.

Kingsway Tram Tunnel and Crossrail

Recent developments at Kingsway, former tunnel in central London originally built to be used by trams carrying passengers from Holborn to Waterloo bridge and providing a link between the north and south London tram networks.  Opening in 1906, it served stations at Holborn and Aldwych and was enlarged to accommodate double-decker trams in 1929; it closed in 1952.  The southern end was converted into the busy Strand underpass, which opened in 1964.  The northern section has been mostly abandoned, being used as a store by Camden council and occasionally by the odd film-crew and art installation.  Now it's been reported that Crossrail is using the northern entrance to construct  a grout shaft 8 metres deep and 5 metres wide.  To minimise ground settlement during tunnelling activity these shafts allow grout to be pumped deep into the earth to stabilise it and protect nearby buildings from any potential ground movement.  Tunnel boring machines Phyllis and Ada are due to pass beneath this area in 2013. According to Keith Sibley, Crossrail Area Director West: 'The Kingsway Tram Tunnel has played a fascinating and unique role in London's transport history.  Now it will play a vital part in helping prepare the ground for the city's most ambitious transport project to date.  As the tunnel is a Grade II listed structure, crossrail will return the Camden section to its prior condition when the works are completed.'

Talking of Crossrail, you may be interested to learn that there will be tours this weekend (22nd and 23rd September) of Bond Street Crossrail station (although it looks from the text as if you won't actually be going into the construction area).  Details here (scroll down to Westminster).  I hope to go on Saturday morning, but if the queues are impossible I won't be hanging around.

English Heretic AGM

I shall be one of the speakers at the English Heretic AGM to be held in the highly atmospheric surroundings of Bath Masonic Hall on Saturday 13th October.  Details here.

Ghost Stories for Christmas

Well, this year's Christmas present is sorted.  The BFI are releasing all the BBC adaptations of MR James' ghost stories on a series of  DVDs.  These were a real highlight of festive season television.  Personal favourites are The Treasure of Abbot Thomas and A Warning to the Curious.  A more recent adaptation that was highly effective was A View from a Hill, which is only available in the 5-DVD set coming out in October.  Unfortunately that one also includes the hugely disappointing 're-imagining' of [Oh]Whistle and I'll Come to You [my Lad] with John Hurt that irritated me a couple of Christmases ago (see earlier post).  However, we did have the creepy pleasure earlier this year of seeing Robert Lloyd Parry's excellent interpretation of that story on stage at the White Rock Theatre, including the ingenious use of a large pocket handkerchief.  Also included in the bunch of releases are the outstanding Dickens adaptation The Signalman with Denholm Elliott, one of the most atmospheric films I've ever seen, coupled with related spooky late-70s tv films Stigma (never seen it, but anything with standing stones is a must-see) and The Ice House (similarly unseen).

Perseid Meteor Shower

Since moving out of London I've had the opportunity to see the night sky more clearly and occasionally observe some interesting celestial phenomena I would never have seen in the capital. One of my favourites is coming up this weekend: the Perseid meteor shower. All you need to know can be found here. The best viewing so far took place when we were camping near Bodmin Moor where there was little light pollution. I got up in the wee small hours and stood outside the tent for half an hour or so marvelling at the shooting stars. The cold and the rather disconcerting noises emanating from the nearby wood eventually sent me back to my sleeping bag.

Robert Hughes

This is getting disturbing. After mentioning Gore Vidal to my wife last week I found out the following day he'd died; at the weekend I thought, after a gap of many years, that I'd renew my acquaintance with some of the articles written by the irascible art critic Robert Hughes. Now it's been announced that he's died as well. One of the few art critics who could also make you laugh out loud, he was certainly one of the major reasons I became interested in art when I saw his television series The Shock of the New and received the accompanying book as a Christmas present.  Obituaries via {Feuilleton}

Legoland Windsor 2/8/2012

Gore Vidal

And so farewell Gore Vidal. Obituary here and more about his acid humour here and here. Coincidentally I'd been telling my wife the day before his death of one of my favourite putdowns, courtesy of Gore. In the long lost days when I listened to Start the Week on Radio 4 he was a guest, together with Watership Down author Richard Adams. When asked what he thought of Vidal's latest novel, Adams,who had come across throughout as a pompous ass, declared that he considered it 'meretricious'. Vidal's instant response was, 'Well, Mr Adams, meretricious and a happy new year to you.' Never read any of his books, but I enjoyed his feline presence in interviews. As some of the obituaries claimed, he could well have been the 20th century's Oscar Wilde. He famously hated Truman Capote (see earlier post) whose Answered Prayers I read recently: very funny and outrageous in parts, I'm glad that he didn't finish it, as what I assumed was the plot, involving an insanely jealous plutocrat husband, which slowly emerged from all the bitching, seemed pretty dull compared to the stories of bad behaviour amongst the American upper classes; presumably it bored Capote too. Also managed to see the second Capote biopic Infamous which was aired on BBC1 late one night recently: possibly better than the award-winning Philip Seymour Hoffman film with a brilliant performance from Toby Jones and a scary pre-Bond Daniel Craig.