MUSIC: THE TIMES THEY ARE CHANGING

But, despite the seemingly familiar resonance of the title, don't expect this to be anywhere near Bob Dylan as this is going in a very different direction.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that in the course of starting to read a book about the British folk-rock scene I'd come across the British classical composer Ralph Vaughan Williams and ordered a 2-disc collection of his music. Almost before that was out of the cellophane wrapper, I'd ordered another 2-disc entitled Hickox conducts Vaughan Williams, and shortly after that a 7-disc set containing V-W's complete symphonies featuring the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Vernon Handley. 

And here's the maestro himself as a young man.

And so, some intense listening and the very beginning of finding out what I liked and what I didn't. What I particularly didn't like was the singing as in singing songs. I disliked the extremely mannered declamatory style where tone mattered above clarity, where I simply couldn't make out the words. (Mind you, I also dislike opera intensely.) Choral music, which might not be the correct term in this instance, is different in that I like voices used as a wordless musical instrument but not to convey a song.

In for a penny, I thought, in for lots of money. Memories came back of a period during my mid to late teens when I bought several cheapo classical records on the Music For Pleasure label such as Holst's Planet Suite and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and enjoyed them a lot, so-

And, yest, they were just as good as I remembered them and were well worth buying. The Planets is probably one of my all time favourite pieces of music, I'd just forgotten that fact for forty years.

Then I considered that maybe rather than buying specific works by a composer (I almost bought Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherzade, another old favourite, but put it on hold on my Wish List) maybe a sampler of a composer's work might be a good idea. After checking out reviews of several on Amazon I went with a couple of Very Best Of's on the Naxos label. One particular review sounded quite authoritative so I ordered the CDs below. Only after reading several other reviews by the same reviewer of the series did I realise that each review was exactly the same except for the CD's details.

I've dipped into the Elgar and Shostakovich and quite like them but enough is enough. I'm really going in blind here. What I need is a general all purpose introduction to classical music. I checked out a number on Amazon and don't really want the Ultimate 100 All You'll Ever Need Greatest Classical Top 10 Smash Hits. However I think I've found a good one from the reviews which accompany it and I've ordered it today. It's a 6-disc set retailing for a paltry £4.99. The one good thing about getting into classical music is that it's so cheap to get quality performances.

Here's a review by (and I'm not joking) A Customer:

There is a glut of classical music compilations available and for the uninitiated it can be a bit of a stab in the dark as to which to pick out. Having listened to several, I would commend this selection above all others. Not only is it more extensive than most (all?), the six CD's are neatly arranged by theme. The recordings themselves are generally fairly good and will allow the listener to find composers or pieces that he or she will want to listen to further. 

And that will very definitely do to be going on with. No more until I've given these a thorough listening to.

DVD: DISTRICT 9

This was always on my get round to buying once it's cheap enough list I just never seemed to get around to it until a few days ago when I saw it down to £3.99 on Amazon so, yeah, sure, all right, why not, so I did.

Let's get the obvious out of the way from the beginning. Of course it's a giant metaphor for apartheit South Africa. It's a South African-made movie, set in South African, with a South African cast and crew with some special effects and producing from Peter Jackson and his sfx studio Weta. A giant space ship appears over Johannesburg and is found to contain thousands of aliens who have no idea where they are or how they got there so they are dumped in a Soweto-style slum and left to fend for themselves. Twenty years later and they are considered the lowest of the low, thieves, scavengers (which they are and have no choice) and worse, possessors of vile personal habits. From a human point of view this is understandable as they're derogatively called prawns and do have a certain resemblance to them, especially their young. Have a look-

That's the setup. The story begins as a documentary with the focus on Neil Blomkamp's character an amiable but not too bright manager (with the Afrikaner name of van der Mewe) who is given the job of running the distribution of eviction letters to the aliens by his father-in-law. The company has been trying to exploit alien technology for years and has been frustrated by the fact the weapons need an alien biological component for them to work. Van der Mew is just as prejudiced as everyone else, especially as he works for the private company the govenment gave the job to of dealing with the aliens but he does know them, understands their language and doesn't like it when they are casually brutalised. Brutality against them for a good reason like self defence he doesn't mind at all.

Needless to say the prawns don't want to be relocated to what our 'hero' admits at one stage is effectively a concentration camp. As he accidentally, and without even realising at first, comes across a prawn who has to have been one of the crew rather than the workers and is engaged in repairing a shuttle hidden for twenty years, he is infected with alien dna and begins to change. When the company he works realise what's happening, his death is faked and he's tortured into using the alien weapons. When he realises that they are going to use his changing body for parts he manages to escape.

I'll say no more about the plot. This is really an excellent SF film and genuinely original. The protagonist alone is a refreshing change and Blomkamp is terrific in the role. Van der Mewe is a moderately bright and well meaning likeable but gauche klutz who loves and is loved by his wife and who finds an inner strength and a stronger morality when everyone he knows turns on him and he in turn turns to a member of a despised species for help.

This is an outstanding film and I can't recommend it enough. (Incidentally, this isn't an Amazon review.)

Post Script.

Incredibly stupid mistake up above. Neil Blomkamp is the director and the actor I praised so much in the lead role is Sharlto Copley

TRAVELS: "GOT MY MOTOR RUNNIN'/ HEAD OUT ON THE HIGHWAY."

Apart from Sundays when Phil borrows it for dogs and at other odd times, I'm the white van man driver for Animal Krackers. Mostly it's just around town to call on Carol who looks after our cats, to pick up cats no longer wanted by their owners plus the occasional stray, and to take cats (and sometimes dogs or rabbits) to one of three local vets. Apart from two or three trips a year to Burnhope to visit Tracy's rescue to drop off some cats when she has spare capacity or to StrayAid just down the A1, it's rarely outside the city's boundaries. To any American readers the distances I travel are minuscule which is why I'm mentioning the two I'm about to mention which are outside my usual routes and routines.

Last Saturday morning I found an email from a friend of a friend who lives in Lanchester wanting help with a mother and her three tiny kittens which were staying behind bushes outside her front door. To cut a shortish story even shorter, I climbed into the van and drove to where she lived. I may have visited Lanchester before, a Durham village even further away than Burnhope, but if I had it must have been over 40 years ago and then that would have been passing through. It helped that I had to take the same route as I do for Burnhope only without turning off and heading up into the hills and the specific location was very easy to find thanks to certain landmarks.

I went up to the house and found-

(This was taken in my cat carrier)

These two tiny things only a few days old. I was informed that the mother and the other kitten hadn't been seen all morning. After half an hour and a couple of phone calls to Carol, I gently put them in the carrier and drove over to Carol's who popped them in with the mother cat (see the white cats post) who was still lactating. The cat accepted them but her other much larger kittens started trying to play with them. But, after a stint of hand feeding, Carol removed her kittens and put them in a cage with two older kittens and the babies with the mother cat. A day and a half later and this is still working.

Almost all our charity's income comes from the shop and the donations of goods it receives. From time to time we get some decent stuff for which we can get more by taking them to an auction sale room. Usually it's just the one a few miles along the road but this time they weren't interested in what we had -three good-makes  rocking chairs, a few oldish radios, a magic lantern, and a large Bible with illustrations by Gustav Dore- but another auction house was willing to take them on. 

This place was a bit of a trail (for me anyway) as it's on the far side of Newcastle upon Tyne so I allowed myself an hour to get there. Just as well I did as for a long section of the main Newcastle dual carriageway there were roadworks which really slowed the traffic down. Once past that it got better and I shot through Newcastle on the central motorway. Coming off it, however, I took the wrong road, doubled back and was still on a wrong road. Thankfully a friendly community support officer was able to put me on the right road which was the road I thought was the first wrong road but was actually the right road. 

I got there with five minutes to spare to find myself meeting a miserable unenthusiastic git who reluctantly took everything except an old record player and the Dore Bible. Going back I took a different route (which Susan had mentioned before I'd set out but I knew better) which went past the Metrocentre and was a lot faster and quicker.

And there we are.

BOOKS: RECENT ARRIVALS

This is Hill's second novel. He's also published a collection of short stories and is writing a graphic story series (oh all right, comics series) which has been collected into two volumes to date. He's also very good, youngish (thirty-something) and improving all the time.

Horns is a fairly low-key horror-ish novel. A young man wakes up with horns on his head. The horns make people tell him their darkest desires and he can push them into acting on them. All this surrounds the mystery of the rape and murder of his long-term girlfriend and most people believe he did it. The setting is small as is the cast of characters and is really well done. It did feel a little overlong, particularly when we learn the villain's story at great length, but overall it's quite an accomplished piece.

Here a picture of him with his dad. There's something just a little familiar about the old guy.

I've ordered a classical CD this evening, the first piece of classical music I've since Holst's The Planets back in the mid-60's. This is it.

 

And the reason I bought it is because I bought a book entitled Electric Eden: unearthing Britain's visionary music by Rob Young following a rave review in last week's Sunday Times. I dipped into it and checked the musical discopgraphic timeline at the back and for some reason the name Ralph Vaughan Williams caught my eye so I read the section  about him then visited Amazon, listen to several previews, liked them a lot, and ordered the CD above. The book itself has gone to the top of my reading pile.

The book it replaced is a literary apocalyptic novel, the 760 page first half of a dyptych, which has been garnering rave reviews.

More on these to follow.

CATS

I don't normally do cats in this blog but these are so gorgeous I had to share one photo with you. The full story and more pics are on my cat rescuing blog.

POLITICS/SOCIETY: DAVID CAMERON'S BIG SOCIETY

1.

 Before making any comment on the idea of the leader of a party I didn't vote for, it's probably a good idea for me to state where I stand as regards to politics and society as this will inevitably shade any comments I do have to make.

So, my basic stance is of the libertarian left (see the website The Political Compass for more details -the link is on the sidebar). One fundamental I do accept is that we live within a society which is run on the capitalist system and, currently, we have to work within the framework that this imposes. The days of smashing capitalism are over; controlling it, however, is something I'll get onto in a moment.

My belief is that the duties of the state or government (as far as this short essay is concerned I'm using the two terms interchangeably) are:

to create a viable growing economy which will benefit society on all levels;

to create a society which is just, fair and equitable to all individuals.

The devil, however, is in the details. To do this, I believe, the government should control and restrain capitalism according to the needs of society. The capitalist system too should serve society; it is a means not an end in itself.

My belief is also that the individual should serve society in order to facilitate the creation of a society which is just, fair, etc. I believe wholeheartedly in the welfare state but the problem with the system that we have is that it has created a dependency culture where generation after generation live on benefits and contribute nothing. This is just as wrong as letting the weakest go to the wall.

2.

So, what does David Cameron's Big Society actually involve? Funny thing is that no-one seems exactly sure. It does involve devolving some central government powers to local authority level which, in theory, is a good thing as it implies giving more power directly to the people. He also wants to involve local organisations and volunteers and, presumably local charities, to create active community involvement which, again, in theory is a good idea. What I've read and heard so far is somewhat vague but the noises sound right to me. It's way to early to argue whether or not it's going to fail but what is good about it is that it's actually an idea which could empower society and the individual.

From The Guardian, 19th July 2010

Cameron also outlined three strands of the big society agenda. These included social action for which the government had to foster a culture of voluntarism and philanthropy. There was also public service reform – getting rid of centralised bureaucracy "that wastes money and undermines morale" – and community empowerment, "creating communities with oomph", the neighbourhoods being "in charge of their own destiny".

In theory this does sound a good idea but what Cameron will need to do is to motivate society as whole, to change the current collective and individual way of thinking about the way the system can work. As I've made clear I'm not a Conservative supporter but I'm more than willing to have an open mind on this venture and actually hope it succeeds.

3.

Another idea announced just three days later is National Citizen Service.  I'll quote from The Daily Telegraph:

Among the activities involved in the National Citizen Society projects will be an outdoor challenge like orienteering, “a set of structured tasks involving visiting and helping the local community,” and a “social action task” such as clearing wasteland.

Youngsters will work alongside teenagers of different backgrounds, with a residential element of at least 10 days. 

New National Citizens with Dave

Again I like this idea because it  fits in with what I believe about the individual contributing to society.

What I hope Cameron will also do, and has indeed indicated this, is to reform the benefit system. so long as it fits within my creatia of being just, fair, and equitable. The last thing I want to see is people being forced into work who are genuinely incapable of it as is happening now, particularly with regard to the disabled. But what I would really like him to do is to wean able-bodied people of the dependency culture. Too many individuals see no reason to work when the State will pay for their needs. This is wrong: these people are not contributing to society and are effectively stealing from their neighbours who do contribute. To put an end to this I believe that the government should instigate a local community service for all those who can work but are unemployed and thereby these people can contribute to society and their community in particular.

I realise that the above could make me sound like some rabid right-winger when that is so far from the truth. It stems from my belief that contributing to society not only improves society but enhances the individual. It uplifts the individual. I've spent all my working life helping in my work as a librarian and I'm spending a large number of hours a week helping animals. I'm not claiming any great virtue in this: I worked as a librarian because I enjoyed it and I help animals because of my love for animals and I enjoy what I do. Doing something positive is life-enhancing -and this also fits in with my vaguely Buddhist sympathies.

4.

Of course I'm still pissed off at the new government because as part of their savings they have cut free swimming for under 16s and over 60s. Tomorrow I'm forking out £180 for a year's swimming subscription at my local sports centre.

 Tough shit, kids. Tough shit, granddad.

5.

Expect more from me on Big Dave's Big Society as it gets going.