Pictures

I’ll do some words soon.  I will, trust me.

And I might tell you about Eric.  He’s the fine looking chap, slightly out of focus but it’s not his fault, at the top.

Have you ever been

…. on a kibbutz? No, me neither. But the latest volume from Amos Oz does more than ‘take you there’. I had a rare dip into fiction, though I knew a little of Oz’s writing from his How to Cure a Fanatic, a couple of lectures he gave some years ago, and the most common sense I have read yet on issues around the West Bank and Gaza, from an Israeli, a former soldier.

Amos Oz has a long list of works to his credit, with getting on for a score of fiction and a further half dozen non-fiction.

In Between Friends he takes us to a kibbutz. And he pens portraits of some of the characters whose lives are inter-twined in communal living, combined in much more than in being Jewish, which is what brought them together. His writing is calm and measured, the detail such that you may feel more part of the community than eavesdropper, or voyeur. Close your eyes and you might just sniff the blooms in the garden, the whiff of the childrens’ dorm or the ashtray left on the table.

But it is undoubtedly shared humanity that binds us all together, and that is the over-riding theme which Oz has pervading his fictional and real worlds. I’ve put his A Tale of Love and Darkness on my list. It promises much.

Arra Slits and Trebuchets

It might not happen often, but when we do manage a day out, all together, and with sun aloft, we manage to do it quite well.

It’s not often you’ll read of Prometheus in these pages, but here he is, in sandstone, in chains, having his liver pecked by eagles, on the wall of a castle.

Prometheus, on these pages!

And it’s quite a castle, with more than a little still standing, waiting to be explored by little feet, quizzes in hand, pencil at the ready. It has a moat too, all the way round, entry by bridge or boat only, though I’ve managed to hide the moat in these views.

I see no moat

The surrounding woods are filled with bluebells, and deer and natterjack toads. There was a robin quite noisy too as we invaded his patch.

But what is most unusual about Caerlaverock, what makes it unique among castles on these isles, is that it has only three sides, or rather that it has alway had only three sides; for it is triangular. There are still steps to take up you up turrets, or down to the bakehouse. And you can look up, to where rib-vaulted ceilings remain.

With picnic tables and a wee adventure playground; an exhibitiion and the chance for the urchins to draw up their own coat of arms, on a shield, it’s just a right good day out. And we needed it.

And up there, at that stand of trees, the Romans had been before, and placed their fort.

It’s such a lovely part of the world.  When the castle has been wandered, the picnic packed away, there’s wetlands and boardwalks; bulrushes too and wildflowers among them.

Feeling Groovy

It’s another of those books I didn’t pick up when it first hit the shelves seven years or so ago. I know not why; picked it up, flicked and returned to the stacks. I knew Rory MacLean’s work and had read several, but Magic Bus didn’t then appeal. The time was not right. I was probably still deep in the Siberian Tundra, or on the trail of the Romanovs, or even flying with Dragons. But I didn’t board The Magic Bus.

However it’s a journey I’ve now completed, Fares Please, quoth Mr MacLean as I hopped on, and he duly serendaded me all the way from Istanbul to Katmandu, with a few wee detours here and there.

We visited places that now hold huge interest to me; places such as Istanbul and Isfahan, and Cappadocia with its fairy chimneys. And we’ve been to Afghanistan, the border crossings from Iran and into Pakistan, in Herat and Kabul with flight necessitated inbetween.

Whilst Pakistan and India hold fascinations it’s the western end of the hippie trail that does it for me. At the ghats of Varanasi MacLean goes in search of Ginsberg’s flat and all through the route there’s reference to the men of the time, to Kerouac and his beat poets.

I can live without that for I’m going to be controversial here; oh yes I am, it’s confession time. I read On The Road but recently. Never Again. Firstly I don’t like the theme of the times, all the sleaze and the drugs, in much the same way as I’ve no intention of reading, say, Trainspotting. But more importanly I thought Kerouac’s writing to be really awful. The anniversary edition was the original unedited script and I guess if he’d presented that to the publishing houses today he’d probably end up down the self publishing road. Maybe the edited version was better, after the professionals worked on it. Dire. Me no like.

Anyway, back to Rory. He has a theme; every chapter the title of a song, and lyrics popping up here and there. It’s a book you sing your way through, deep in nostalgia. And being Rory he takes someone on the journey with him. Chance meetings here, a bit of language problem there. He has a habit of bringing interesting people into his tales. There was Penny, reliving her days of the 60s, who he left in Cappadocia, only to meet up again at the border post, in Nepal of all places. And so my heart gently weeps.

But it’s Afghanistan that holds the interest. Especially as little of the country was available. He takes us to the ruins of the Bamiyan buddhas, and to the detritus of the museum in Kabul after the Taliban have let rip on idolatory and history, artefacts gone but painstakingly sifted to try and find a couple of bits that just might join together.

So the Intrepids made it all possible all those years ago, but as they say, the times they are a-changing.  And MacLean nails those changes firmly, whilst at the same time whipping up the melodies of the day.  Good stuff, hippies hash and hepatitis back then, but a great trip now.  Fares Please.

Interesting Week

It’s one of those hectic ones, so I’ll spare you the minutae.

First, foremost and everything – it’s amdram week. The Wizard of Oz, oh yes the witch is dead, running for four nights after a full dress rehearsal going far too late for an Urchin expected to function at school the next day. But given that the school have managed one five day week this month they’re off again, Friday and Monday, so the final two performances can come with a lie in.  And Gala Day looms, already.

I’ve yet to see the show, but will do that on the last night. The Law of Sod dictates that a busy week comes with other things on the agenda. The annual community sports night has been and gone, medals and cups awarded. But there were none, I noticed, for the hardy souls that braved the icy blasts to stand around cheering on their superstars as they wheel-barrowed and sacked, tattie & spooned, or three-legged their way to the finishing line.

Of course there were tears and traumas, tantrums too, but the children behaved just fine. And more than that it gives an opportunity to meet up, a wee tea & scone from the Rural Wifies in the hall afterwards.

And that’s when I learned that my encounter cycling last week, feeling vulnerable and threatened, was in fact a dear friend trying to say hello – the big black SUV encounter, you may remember. ‘Twas The Midwife and her eldest, but I can’t see behind me, can’t take my eyes off the road or I’ll end up in the ditch, and am conscious of lack of space; aware of too many numpties behind the wheel of a car. Did you catch this one in the news the other day?  Shocking stuff.

Absent from the gathering though, since she moved her apostles away, was The Queen of Hearts. But she passed on a gem the other day, as a result of which I’m listening, as I type this drivel, to an interview with Diana Krall, on a Jazz Piano channel. And on the same station I’ve bookmarked the Book Review channel, News too, though I don’t really expect npr to give much coverage to a certain referendum. But as a radio station, available online, I’m looking forward to talk channels, perhaps even of the long-lost type we had before Talk Radio morphed into English footie, removing from the airwaves gems such as Anna Raeburn and Tommy Boyd, Nancy Roberts too and Sean Bolger who richly entertained on weekend mornings. Where are they all now?  Sean Bolger….

Anyway The Midwife’s just grand, anxious to get painty as the float for the Gala Day parade takes shape, and the QofH passes on little nuggets. The Quiz Team gets out to play next week, and there’s a Referendum Roadshow tonight. And The Urchins are off school, again.

So the bikes might get out this weekend.  And that means I face the prospect of being overtaken, going uphill, by a seven year old learning what gears are for, again, as he did last weekend.  Oh the ignominy.  Cycling alone doesn’t seem so bad after all, but it’s nice to get out together.  It’s not so bad, this old life thing, is it?

Squaring the Circle

Of late there seems to have been a running theme, albeit unintentional; slavery. It started with genealogy in the sugar plantations, and cropped up again on Saharan travels. Music completes the journey.

A week or two back, of a Friday evening, there was much jazz on BBC Four.  A large chunk of it has been etched onto a dvd, and I’ve been enjoying it thoroughly.  There’s divas and tragedy, and names long gone, and there’s always something new.

In one night we had feverish finger-snapping, vintage Ella, and the grim tragedy of Billie and Sarah.  And there was piano, for that’s what does it for me.

But I’m not content with a taste of Ahmad Jamal, or Oscar Petersen perspiring on his ivories.  And if I wax on about Basie or The Duke I start to morph into my old man, which is too frightening a prospect.  There was Diana Krall though, peeling her grape and taking me all the way back to a hushed hall in Wigan Pier and a long drive home.

And there was Dave Brubeck, in superb form, giving us Take Five which will always put me in mind of a dear friend who took five on her departure last summer.  That’s another theme for another day – tunes to go out with.  Thomas the Tank Engine, the original theme, being the biggest tear-jerker of all.

But above all shone a new one on me, and that’s the beauty of music, discovering something new even when it’s decades old.

So of late my quiet hour of reading outside the Sunday morning football class, has come with some soothing jazz, and some louder bits.  Abdullah Ibrahim is the man, with bass and drum making up the trio.  I’ve been listening to a recording of a South African concert in 1997, a pianist who came through the apartheid years.

But the artist once known as Dollar Brand has more than just piano strings to his proverbial bow.  He plays flute, sax and cello too; sings and masters karate, though perhaps not at the same time.

And from Cape Town Revisited, recorded in that town in 1997, it’s Cape Town to Congo Square that really hits the mark.  I was intrigued too by the young dreadlocked bass player who was with him on Jools in 2000; it certainly wasn’t Marcus Maclaurine, his usual man on the strings, but if anyone knows do please drop me a line.

Congo Square, it’s that slavery thing again.  A familiar name too, for I’ve been there, in New Orleans, listening to jazz.  Back in the 1700s Congo Square was the slave market, no not that type of market, it was the place where the slaves were allowed to sell the trinkets they could make to try and earn another bawbee or two, or a cowrie shell perhaps.

So we’ve come full circle, and it’s the sounds of South Africa’s black population that ring out, after all that’s gone before.  Play it again.

Heinrich Barth

No, I hadn’t heard of him either, but he’s been occupying The Bedside Table for some weeks.

But Steve Kemper has been on his trail, and quite a trail it was.  A Labyrinth of Kingdoms is Kemper’s run through the 10,000 miles that Barth travelled; 10,000 miles of Islamic Africa, in the 1850s.

These were the days in the aftermath of Mungo Park’s death on the Niger; of Laing being murdered after leaving Timbuktu; of a German on a London expedition, in the pay of the Foreign Office and the RGS; the days when war is waged in Crimea, leaving Barth’s family in Prussia a bit nervous, as well as all the Germans in Victoria’s household.

But they needn’t have worried for they heard tell of Heinrich’s death and had a ceremony, a burial of his belongings.  Then he returned, for he wasn’t, not then.  He did die young though, aged 44, a legacy of his travails and of further travels after his Saharan sojourn..

He wrote of it too, all 3,500 pages of it, selling little as Livingstone’s 700 pages sold in the tens of thousands.  And that in essence was Barth; a fastidious loner, a linguist and a scientist, intent on the detail.

But it was some journey.  He learned languages and dialects, and wrote them down – one plate giving us a pages of his Hausa/Emgedesi/English vocabulary.  Unlike others venturing into the dangers he eschewed circumcision as a defence against being an infidel, and hid neither his colour nor his creed.  And he survived.

Indeed he did more than that, for he gained the favour of the Tuareg, favoured trade agreements for Britain in preference to the French.  He set off under the direction of an Englishman, Richardson, with another German, Overweg in the party.  Barth was the only one to return, after years in empires the names of which have long since been consigned to history.

He travelled through Bornu, Sokoto, Gwandu, Bagirmi, Hamdallahi and many more.  He ran up debts and agreed finances, was awarded medals, and he wrote his tales.  For currency he varied between cowrie shells and cloth strips.  A family could live for a year on 50-60,000 shells – the equivalent to a fiver; a sword might cost as many as 1,000.  He witnessed a major transaction in which half a dozen people completed the heroic work of counting out half a million shells to complete the deal at a time when a salt caravan could generate the wealth of 100 million of them.  Shells in the desert, Darwin would have loved it.

And there was slavery yet, 5,000 people being sold annually for the coastal markets, or for the harem.  The eunuch was the most rare, and most expensive of all.  The Qur’an forbade castration so either eunuchs were bought for pagans, or intact young males were sent to the Christians, especially the Coptic monks who ran castration centres for the Muslim market.

And there was tea, and Tuaregs with their blue veils and stained skins, and Timbuktu and all its marvels and manuscripts and gold.

Through it all though were communication problems.  By the time he received a letter from London, with money and supplies, telling him of a steamer being sent from the Thames to the Niger and beyond, the ship had sailed, been there, done that, and was back in London.

At times it’s been as arid as a summer Sunday in the Sahel, but I’m glad I read of Heinrich Barth.

On the Road with….

the best and worst of the morning traffic. The last couple of days have been as fine as they were unexpected, but I gather it’s all back to normal tomorrow. The local petrol-head show has been cancelled, due no doubt to somewhat soft conditions underfoot before dozens of classic cars and other rusty, oily machines go on display. I quite like the idea of a fleet of tractors being needed to haul them all out the field, along with those that want to spend the day peering in windscreens and under bonnets.

Meanwhile The Grasshopper’s been battling slowly up the hills between the hedgerows, cranking along to the accompaniment of skylarks overhead and a distant great tit. It makes such a difference to be out without headwinds or gales,; the morning songs bringing cheer to even an old wheezy heart of stone.

But three traffic related encounters stick in the mind. The first involved a transit van, emerging from a gate. He paused to check the traffic then emerged. Then he stopped fully across the road, needing such space to allow his trailer of junk to clear the gates so they could be closed behind him. So the old man on the ‘bent had to stop and dismount, and wait.

sorry about that, came the mutterings. How much more high viz yellow, how much bigger a flag do I need, wondered I. Would he have stopped for another transit?

Then there was the tractor, towing a tank of diesel. He came up behind, struggling uphill was I, nowhere to go, not even a passing place. But I hugged the edge and he nudged into the soft muddy verge on the other side, giving room a-plenty, and off we all went, the tractor somewhat quicker than the ‘hopper.

Next up was the shiny black SUV, again a single road though a little wider this time. He too approached from the rear, but seemed to be biding his time, hanging back. At a little widened part, the verge well used where cars pass, I slowed, gave up my hard earned impetus and freewheeled, leaving maximum passing room. But no, this plonker didn’t want to pass, for he drew up beside me, and kept pace with me, giggling like a low IQ pre-teen, giving me no space on the road and probably filming silly-looking cyclist for display on his faceache or I’m-a-tube site or whatever.

So knowing the steep descent looming, I regained the middle of the road and never saw him again. It brought to mind the episode of the half-full can of juice thrown at me through a passing car window a year or two back. And we give these people the vote.

Then along came Mr Farage to brighten up proceedings.

Now after the tractor passed I caught up with him again, grafting away at some work on the next junction, digger in field, van at road side, with tractor and driver blocking the road. The driver of course knew I was coming, and when he eventually saw me cresting the rise, he jumped back into his cab and reversed trailer and tractor out of my path. Decent chap, unexpectedly so.

Then I saw his registration plates, PL the interantional code. Glad to have you around chaps. I’d rather have the tractor man than the van and SUV driver Mr Farage. You can keep them.

Let’s Go Beyond ‘UK-OK’

Superb article from Bella Caledonia and Women for Independence.  Well worth a posting, alone and without further wittering from me.

 

Let’s Go Beyond ‘UK-OK’.

Labouring the point

Seismic changes this week, in the ongoing debate, the one leading up to 18 September next year.

Just as we get used to the three combined unionist parties thumping the same tub, seeking labour votes on the back of tory funding – leaving aside the dodgy donation aspect for now – so we find what seems to be a split in the ranks.

Of late we’ve seen the rise of Ukip in the local elections down south, and the immediate impact this has had on referendum matters – EU referendum that is.  We are told that Ukip asked to join the Better Together party, but were declined entry.  You’re not Scottish they were told.  And lo, is that a chorus of neither are the rest of you?  There is no such beast as the Scottish Labour Party, it does not exist.  The group in Scotland jigs to London’s tune, and that is part of the problem.

But to tell the newcomers they can’t join in is no real surprise.  Ukip though have said they will put up a candidater at the Aberdeen Donside by-election next month, though I doubt that a campaign strategy of diluting the devolution process will do anything other than lose their deposit.  I do not expect the southern gains to be repeated in the north.  In essence Ukip are an irrelevance.

But out comes Gordon Brown, and a new group is formed, United with Labour, separating from BT to keep Scotland shackled.  But no one has had the cojones to ask Labour if they are now distancing themselves from BT, though one newsreader on the BBC did suggest that BT was run by the tories and lib-dems.  But we can’t really expect our media to ask the difficult questions, can we?

So BT have Darling as front man, and Lamont and Baillie on the board.  But now Labour have a new group of their own, with the most disastrous PM of my time as a voter, bar none, at the helm.  The Scotsman had a wee poll the other day – asset or liability?  The result was overwhelming and even the rabid anti-nationalist Hootsmon could not drum up support behind the new flag-bearer.

So we have three Labour groups, and only one of them seems to hold any credibility.  That of course is the one that recognises the socialist roots of the party, and consequently favours independence.  The latest from Allan Grogan can be found over at Newsnet.

You may have read the article on The Common Weal, from the Reid Foundation.  It is a real vision for the future, an aspiration of what we could have.  Jimmy Reid of course was a staunch union man, and became a nationalist when the Labour direction left him behind.

And on that same theme we at last have a voice from Scotland’s business community.  I think Business for Scotland will have a huge role to play.  I’ve added a link to the sidebar, signed up to their quest, and completed their online survey.

So with Bitter Th-gither seeming to split, Labour having three heads, Brown recognised as a liability, and the business community finding its voice, suddenly the heart beats a little faster.  We still have that problem with the media of course, but there’s a wee protest on Saturday taking another few steps down that road.