Number Seventy News

Brushing up on White Teeth

John — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:44:58 +0000

Another re-read. Zadie Smith’s achievement in White Teeth, published when she was only 25, is quite astonishing. I remember the vigour, the humour, the wonderfully eccentric cast from first reading 11 years ago: the Cain and Abel brothers (who are really both variations of Cain), the scheming mothers, the ineffectual fathers, the excruciating pain of dysfunctional family life; but had forgotten the plot almost entirely. The tale is, in fact, quite intricate, and no more dependent upon implausible co-incidence than Dickens. As in Possession, the great storm of October 15 1987 helps the plot along.

The Pianist

John — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:21:12 +0000

Polanski’s film of the true-life story of a Polish Jewish pianist, incarcerated in the Warsaw ghetto and saved by a mixture of luck, arbitrary kindnesses, and heroic actions by local Poles, is almost unremittingly dark in tone (as you would expect). The survival of a very very few, in the end, does not counteract the brutality and atrocities which form the core of the film. There was an exhibition of black and white photographs of the Lodz ghetto at the Side Gallery in Newcastle in 2011 — had I not seen that I would have found some of the things portrayed in the film unbelievable. The film is a black and white movie in colour.

Short but Satisfying

John — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:36:41 +0000

The Roman Bath is not a pub I’ve spent a lot of time in, and looks to continue that way. An uninspiring choice of beers, redeemed only by a nice Old Mill. There was a rock band of old-timers setting up while we were there — could have been something we should have stayed for (cf Cow Pie) but we were too disappointed by the apparent disappearance of the glass roundel in the floor looking down on the Roman remains below, to linger in hope.

So on, the no more than 20 yards to the ever welcoming Three Cranes. A good selection of cask beers, 60s classics on the not too loud musak system, and comfortable seating. It’s a little local in the middle of the city. I like it enormously, brightly lit though it be.

Pivni, on Patrick Pool, has an interesting selection of beers from home and away, including a rather nice German wheat beer(always a favourite of mine) and something extraordinary from Throgmorton Hall (or similar) at 8% proof. One of our number bought a half, which we then shared amongst 5 of us. Verdicts were variously that this the concentrate from which Guinness is made, to observations of strong notes of liquorice and tobacco.

After that we fought our way out through a student invasion to the relative calm and almost spit and sawdust character of the Last Drop, for a welcome and cleansing glass of York Brewery’s Guzzler. 200 yards would have covered the whole itinerary.

Oates and Tweed

John — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:00:26 +0000

A full house at the Black Swan for Jackie Oates and Karen Tweed. An excellent duo, the fiddle and accordion complementing each other beautifully, Karen Tweed providing some beautiful variations as well as a number of solo spots featuring traditional and self-composed tunes. Jackie’s songs varied from the traditional to the contemporary — at times her past incarnation in the Unthanks showed through in the arrangements.

Hattersley’s England, Newby’s Ireland

John — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:50:52 +0000

One might almost be put off a book called “In Search of England” which adds, on the front cover “Gloriously Uplifting: Daily Mail”. However, as the author is Roy Hattersley, it seemed unlikely that there would be much in the way of jingoistic diatribes, and, indeed, there are none. Hattersley, brought up in a hilly suburb of Sheffield, a Labour Minister, and long-time columnist for various newspapers (including the above-mentioned rag) is an unashamed conservative with a small c. His book, which is a collection of his newspaper pieces, organised by theme, is a loving celebration of England, and even more particularly, of Yorkshire. And, like me, he thinks wind-farms are things of beauty, just as the great railway viaducts are, which enhance the countryside, rather than destroy it.

Eric Newby, on the other hand, doesn’t so much celebrate “Round Ireland in Low Gear” as endure it. There are moments when he glories in a view, a sunset, a ruin, an excellent, if eccentric, B & B, but the overall impression is that Ireland in 1986 suffered continuous gales, bearing with them rain, sleet and snow, at almost any time of the year. Why Newby and his wife organised all their bicycling to head westward, given the prevailing winds, is a mystery. Ireland’s many pubs are mentioned, but every time they find one which is both open and serves food, it seems a miracle. They are clearly masochists, the Newbys, since they chose November , January, April and October for the bulk of their adventures, although June seems, if less windy, as wet and more foggy. And for all the descriptions of towers and demesnes and places of pilgrimage along the way, none of it makes me want to take my bike and see them for myself. But I think I’ll go back to “The Great Red Train Ride,” if only to see if Newby’s vision is equally bleak across Siberia.

Scarborough’s Winter Delights

John — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:25:40 +0000

Basically, these boil down to the beach, the sea and a good fish and chip lunch. And in winter the light is low and interesting and the beach uncrowded.

Repossessing Possession

John — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:19:46 +0000

Radio 4 is doing A.S. Byattt’s “Possession” over 3 weeks in dramatised 15-minute segments. It’s pretty good, and captures the story-line of the original very well. I can see why the adaptor has provided a sort 0f frame of Roland and Maud looking back on the events and how they felt about them, and that works, though there are also some added lines of dialogue for various characters which don’t seem necessary either in moving the plot forward or establishing character. Compared to the book (which I have just re-read) the relationship between Roland and Maud always seems more cordial but the radio version also brings out much more clearly the parallels between the romance of Randolph Ash and Cristabel LaMotte and that of Roland and Maud. For several episodes, until I checked, I thought the director was doing what is often done in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and having the two parallel couples played by the same actors. But no. Of the other parts, I particularly liked Val’s tone of whiny dissatisfaction and Leonora’s brash transatlantic academic feminism.

A Poetic Late Flowering

John — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:04:56 +0000

Michael Hildred’s poetry book “Late Flowering”, illustrated by the author, ranges more or less chronologically through his life experiences, from childhood in Selby during the war to living, still in Yorkshire, in the 21st century. I’m familiar with Michael’s dramatic style of reading aloud, often long poems from memory, and I do wonder how some of these appear on the page to someone not familiar with his readings. In a way, I can answer my own question, because I was particularly struck, and moved, by four poems which I have never heard him perform: “I Didn’t twig,” “Blackbird”, “Deep Scan” and “Another Place”. The first two of these are very personal, about devastating loss, but approached so obliquely that only at the end of the poem is the true force of emotion revealed.

www.stairwellbooks.co.uk

Back to Naipaul

John — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 17:48:52 +0000

V.S. Naipaul’s “A Bend in the River” was first published in 1979 and I must have first read it soon after it came out in Penguin in 1980. It’s a tale of post-colonial Africa, set somewhere deep in the interior of the continent, in a town which acquired a veneer of western civilisation during the colonial era (French, probably). Re-reading it now, having observed, at a distance and through the pages of the press, a further 30 years of African history, I am impressed by how comprehensively Naipaul dramatised the stages, the stresses, the ethnic tensions of emergent countries whose peoples often have nothing in common but the fact that they exist within lines drawn on a map by the colonial powers. The narrator is an ethnic asian, a minority amongst non-African minorities. As a trader he serves a purpose for the African community within which he works, but he is not part of the new Africa, for all his family’s history. He requires a new identity, at the same time as Africa is in turmoil around him, and for him, as, it seems, for all non-natives, it has to be found outside Africa.

Vermeer in Cambridge

John — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:48:55 +0000

It’s a cosy little exhibition at the Fitzwilliam, and free !! What it does, rather than show off lots of Vermeer’s paintings of women (there are a few) is set Vermeer in context, his portraits in context, the detail and the meaning in context. Really exciting to see so many Dutch interiors (mostly) of the 1600s, and appreciate the number and variety of artists working at the time. And who knew peeling apples was going to be such a popular subject ?

Aside from that, an amble round some of Cambridge’s cloistered colleges and narrow lanes, and an atmospheric late afternoon visit to King’s College Chapel.