Number Seventy News

A standing ovation magnificently deserved. Jan Gabarek, Rainer Bruninghaus, Yuri Dniel and Trilok Gurtu in a stunning single  2   1/4 hour set of enormous variety with Bruninghaus and Gurtu in particular getting a very fair share of solos.  As well as the trademark ethereal nordic mysteries there were some really upbeat numbers, also some with what seemed like very unusual time signatures plus some rare glimpses of a Gabarek sense of humour in a duel with Gurtu, Garbarek on flute and Gurtu on voice percussion.

Whereas the York Theatre Royal Pantomime is the highest quality load of old rubbish you could ever hope to see in your lifetime.  It just  gets more outrageous every year – more costume changes, more elaborate sets, more ad libbing, less plot, and, in this case, Humpty Dumpty humpty dumptied after the first scene.  Berwick Kaler has made this his gift to the people of York for over thirty years, aided and abetted by Martin Barrass, Suzy Cooper, and David Leonard  and it is just wonderful – I hope to keep going as long as Berwick does.

Actually, it’s not, it’s rubbish.  Enjoyable rubbish, true, but it’s not Meryl Streep at her best and it’s all about rich people in Californication.  I was actually rooting for the creep ex-husband but we should have been hoping she got off with the utterly boring architect.  Add to “Films I should Never Have Bothered Going to See>”

The Shoulder of Mutton at Kirby Hill does a nice pint, has two coal fires, and a good menu.  Situated on the edge of a small escarpment looking North over the Holme Valley, the village of Ravensworth, and towards Teesdale.  We were staying in Kirby Hill, a small village, hamlet really, round a green off the through road. Snow made it all idyllic, once we managed to get to and from Richmond to get food supplies (thanks Stephen and Colin – saved our Christmas potatoes).  Delightful walks across snow-covered fields to Ravensworth (thanks for the tea and whiskey, Dorothy and William) where there is a ruined castle in the middle of a marsh.  Going back up there was a lane too snowy for road traffic.  It would have been the most wonderful toboggan run. After a couple of days of slight melting during the day and freezing at night it was more like a bobsled run – lethal, probably.  Walks too along the edge of the moor, where the army, which usually uses it as a firing range, was having a Christmas truce.  Altogether  an excellent week in a flat converted out of the Old Grammar School (1640 something to 1957).

And we got there by train and 2 buses. Only downside to this was the cancellation of bus services on Xmas eve due to snow (see note above ref getting to and from Richmond) and Richmond Council’s refusal to provide any shelter for bus passengers in the square where all the buses start from.

Like Chris Wood (the musical one) these two Martins never quite know when enough is enough in the introduction line. Eventually, enough is enough, especially when they are both such stunningly good guitarists.  Excellent variety of numbers, from folky to world music to jazz to (almost) easy listening.  I can’t help thinking that Martin Simpson has the harder edge – but that’s mostly because I know him too as a singer.

The Edinburgh Arms is quite friendly and cosy in an expansive sort of way, though it doesn’t really do half-pints.  We explained that we’d been to 18 pubs already, and were due to visit 18 more.  Out the back and 20 yards to the Sea Horse, a Sam Smith’s pub with the usual restricted choice, though the layout is nice, with separate rooms and well laid out and comfortable seating.  But the star of the evening was the recently re-opened Phoenix.  Three decent beers, a friendly welcome, an open fire, and a decor which invited you to just sink in and enjoy (though no cushions or soft furnishings in sight).  And that was just the front bar.  They also do a wine list and a small selection of single malt whiskeys.  Vaut le detour.

Train to Darlington through extremely wet countryside – the Ouse at York well over the Ings and the riverside footpaths and every stream and small river north wards full to overflowing. At times the train on its embankment was crossing lakes, from which at intervals sprouted the tops of fences, or trees, or a half-submerged shed.    Bus from Darlington to Richmond – confusingly altered to pass Darlington station in the reverse direction (where there is no bus shelter). At Richmond a quick change to a local bus through dripping countryside and flooded lanes to Ravensworth, a village set round a large green with at the top a magnificently ruined and jagged castle. No shop, and the pub not open yet (still only 11.30) so off up the 1 in 4 road masquerading as a stream bed to Kirby Hill.  True to its name, there was a large parish church in a very commanding position atop a ridge, overlooking a magnificent series of hills and valleys to the North.  Behind the Church cluster cottages and farms round a small green, off the through road. More of this in a subsequent blog, I hope.  A fine pub, but also closed because it was Monday.  A quick sally on the faithful Brompton to the villages on either side showed picturesque wetness, more stream/roads and one other closed pub. Must come back when it’s not Monday.  And so back to Richmond – the ford I’d been warned about now thankfully only an inch or two deep.  Richmond seemed to have at least one excellent butcher, at which I bought an excellent haggis.

The rain, which had mostly kept off all day, fell heavily on the b us to Darlington, but that was OK.

Apart from the fact that the patter to songs ratio is too heavily weighted onto the patter, what a superb entertainer !  Humorous songs and deadly serious ones – like the one about the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes  which makes the stalkers sound like gangsters from the start..  Liked his description of the then Mrs Thatcher as a “vicious old spiv.”  The band, this time, included a cellist, a trombone player, and a drummer.  Nice sound – including the trombone as a Spitfire.

And, actually, written by a Norwegian, Roy Jacobsen.  It’s a novel called, in English translation, “The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles” set in WWII in the Finnish Winter, when the inhabitants of a small town set fire to it and leave, to prevent the invading Russians from using it as a base.  The hero is a faux-simple man who stays on, collects together the rag-tag of rejects and hopeless cases from the Russian Army to form a group of loggers – and together they survive the bitter weather and the Finnish victory over the Russians.  It has an allegorical feel – must read it again.  Roy Jacobsen is wery well known and respected in Norway, I’m told. It’s a great pity this is his only book in translation.  Bits of it reminded me of Hamsun’s simple farmer characters in”The growth of the Soil”.

Young jazz pianist doing a solo set at the NCEM.  Funny, although he is brilliant I felt the need for a rhythm section on some numbers, to vary the sound a bit and give it some shape.  Keith Jarrett I like solo better than with a group – reverse for Simcock – who played with Tim Garland here a few months ago.