Pet names in pairs

As well as setting great store by titles, I love names. On Saturday afternoon we went out to the wonderful Scratching Post (cat rescue charity) in Waltham Abbey and found these two beauties…

We were only looking for one to succeed the late Tommy Boy Murphy (named after a record label) but as soon as the orange one came into sight he was destined for our house and then the tabby appeared in the background and it turned out they came as a sibling pair.  So it seemed right to seek out a pair of names fitting a boy & girl pair and I put out the call in social media. Names flowed in from all quarters. Even since the names have been decided, the Facebook thread has continued to flow, so it feels like the right thing to do to make all the great suggestions people have kindly offered available to future searchers of paired animal names.

In the end we went for two halves of two pairs, Tango (from Tango & Cash) and Ziggy (from Ziggy & Stardust), the former the orange boy and the latter the grey girl. Tango & Ziggy.

Along the way to those chosen names, here are the suggestions people proposed – thanks to all the friends and family who offered names and I hope this list helps other new parents down the line…

Ziggy & Stardust
Ziggy & Dusty
Zig & Zag
Yin & Yang
Ping & Pong
Shelley & Cooper (after Sheldon Cooper)
Marvin & Tammy
Frida & Diego
Ike & Tina
Harold & Maude
Bogey & Bacall
Scott & Zelda
Maria & Tony
Smokey & Bandit
Pearl & Dean
James & Carole (after Taylor / King)
Crosby & Hope – Bing & Bob
Lois & Clark
Nick & Nora (Dashiell Hammett)
Kit & Kaboodle
Fish & Chips
Posh & Becks
Ronald & Nancy
Artemis & Apollo
Starbuck and Apollo
Smith & Wesson
Armstrong & Miller
Butch & Sundance
Cheech & Chong
Hoddle & Waddle (Spurs)
Darby & Joan
Ginger & Fred
Thing One & Thing Two
Fortnum & Mason
Sooty & Sue
Rhubarb & Custard
Gin & Tonic
Tweedledum & Tweedledee
Tom & Jerry/Geri
Crazy Horse & Custer
Sonny & Cher
Boris & Ken
Whiskey & Ginger
Orson & Rita
Tristan & Isolde
Ron & Hermione
Sapphire & Steel
Steed & Purdey – Steed & Mrs Peel
Richard & Judy
Thisone & Thatone
Bangers & Mash
Toast & Marmalade
Bubble & Squeak
Samson & Delilah
Lucille & Desi
Hall & Oats
Dennis & Maggie
George and Mildred
Oberon and Titania
Troilus and Cressida
Micky and Mallory
Bang & Olufsen
S & M
M & S
Gamble and Huff
Frost & Nixon
Jack & Jill
Joseph & Mary
Dido & Aeneas
Thelma & Louise
Pye & Wacket
Lepsy and Tonic (short for Catalepsy and Catatonic)
Black & Decker
Roy & Haylee
Miles & Davis
Miles & Coltrane/Trane
Lambert and Butler
Benson & Hedges
Betsy and Bunty
Heffalump and Woozle
Blackberry and Apple
Gilbert and George
Sponge Bob and Square Pants
Mork & Mindy
Penn & Teller
Sodom and Gomorrah
Vic & Bob
Tango & Cash
Leopold and Bloom
Boswell and Johnson
Gilbert & Sullivan
Turner & Hooch
Terry & June
Dempsey & Makepeace
Rogoff and Reinhart
Eric & Ernie
1 & 0
Sturm & Drang
Mulder & Scully
Sid & Nancy

Havens to Heaven

When I was still half asleep this morning, the radio playing from some vague distance, I heard the sad news of Richie Havens’ passing on. I found myself standing in front of my Wall of Fame where a photo of Richie is among the select few. I looked out a non-existent window to the left and the top of a ship could just be spotted. As the news hit home it transformed into the top rigging and masts of a bright white ghost ship like Frank Hurley’s images of The Endurance.

Richie Havens first entered my life as the opener of Woodstock. I went to see Michael Wadleigh’s movie of the festival of festivals at the cinema on Shaftesbury Avenue near Seven Dials with my best man and music compatriot Stuart R. The big close up of Richie’s pounding sandal stays in my head – a true leg/end. He had to go on first, although he was originally billed fifth, because traffic was holding up other performers. He held fort and held forth for a couple of legendary hours until reinforcements arrived and his repertoire was entirely exhausted. He climaxed with an improvised medley of Motherless Child and a chant of Freedom (not sure where that comes from). The energy and deep soul is spell-binding and made his name for ever…

I met him once – on a very special occasion. September 1995, Jazz Cafe, Camden Town, London. I took my mum out for a last night out with me still as her unattached boy. We had a chat with Richie after the show and he signed the picture which has since sat on my Wall of Fame. Alongside the likes of Michael Powell and Neil Armstrong and Dave Brubeck. He was the last man standing on the Wall – now they are all up there together again…

He sang a song called Adam on his 1988 LP Mixed Bag. It has his distinctive voice underpinned with its characteristic gruffness. It has the hippy vibe, more San Francisco than his native Brooklyn (I’m not sure why I associate him with San Fran, maybe he lived there in the 90s?) It has the strongly rhythmic approach. Echoes of Gil Scott-Heron, Cat Stevens and Terry Callier. A bit of Jefferson Airplane psychedelia. A wonderful mix all his own.

The sweat on the back of his monk orange kaftan as he walks off stage still singing Freedom at the end of his Big Moment at Woodstock says everything you need to know about what he put into his music.

Ways to spend £10 million #23

Old enmities are set aside for the day

Rip Off Britain – Never was so much owed by so many for so little

I hate monopolies. I hate bad value. I hate bad faith. I hate organisations which rip people off and add no value to the lives of others.

Glad I got that off my chest.

And just to get through a difficult Victor Meldrew moment I must now start a cumulative list of the companies who typify Rip Off Britain.

1. Apcoa Parking (and London Luton Airport Operations Ltd.) – Why do they charge £2 for people to drop off their family at Luton Airport? (We’re not talking parking here, we’re talking stopping the car to let the passenger out and hand them their bag.) Winston says:

Never was so much owed by so many for so little

What do they think that £2 is paying for? What service do they imagine they are actually providing? What value do they think they’re adding? And why is their machine to collect the undeserved £2 held together with tape, why doesn’t it even work? What mediocrity that they can’t even rip you off properly. Apcoa’s vision apparently is: “to be the first choice in parking” I don’t believe it! - where’s the choice when you’re dropping someone off at the airport?

2. National Portrait Gallery – I’ve loved this place since I was a teen but £14 for an exhibition? That’s making art and culture for tourists and the chattering classes exclusively. Try playing Spot the Non-White at the ‘National’ Theatre to reach the same place by a different route.

3. [whoever next cheeses me or you off on similar grounds]

Want to add anything to the list? Feel free to join Winnie and Victor as we fight them on the landing grounds, in the fields and in the streets by commenting below.

Blue and Brassy

American overstatement

On a hunt for NFL gear in NYC this morning for one of the Enfants Terribles, I walked past Macy’s and noticed this brass plaque. The exact wording it turns out is crucial. You leave with the impression that this is where the first movie was projected – “Here the motion picture began” is what misleads. But the truth is actually precisely (and narrowly) what it says below: it’s where Edison first projected a movie. It was put up by “The American Motion Picture Industry” where truth is not always at a premium.

Movies were first publicly projected 8 months earlier in Chicago at the Model Variety Theater. And they were first projected to a paying audience 5 months before in Paris at the Grand Café. In fact they’d already been publicly projected in New York before this date. I haven’t done much research but I dare say there are some other European claims to challenge these dates.

Edison had already charged members of the public to watch movies prior to this date but on peephole machines, not projected. On the date marked by this bold and brassy plaque the film was part of a vaudeville show and was simply three of his peephole films spliced together. So over-stated, over-charged and over here.

Meanwhile back at home in London, I was thinking the other day about blue plaques because a newspaper story has been doing the rounds about how English Heritage, who now administer the blue plaque scheme, established in 1866 and believed to be the oldest of its kind in the world, are about to kill the blue plaque. The scheme was set up under the auspices of the Society of Arts (later the Royal Society of the Arts, of which at one time I was a Fellow). The baton then passed to the London County Council and in due course to the Greater London Council. In 1986, English Heritage took up the responsibility. So the press stories recently suggested that the scheme was about to end but I suspect this was actually cack-handed PR on the part of English Heritage, crying wolf in the face of tight times and cuts. They have subsequently said they are just pausing the scheme to deal with a back-log and slow things down in these cash-starved times. What they have done in the process is drawn attention to the cost of what should at heart be a simple operation with expenditure limited to making a robust piece of blue ceramic, but no doubt there is some immense bureaucracy accreted around a simple idea designed to make a plain link between notable characters from the past and the buildings in which they lived, worked and died. As English Heritage summarises the 147 year old scheme with which it has been entrusted: “It is a uniquely successful means of connecting people and place.” I suspect if EH did pull the plug, we the public could do it for ourselves at a fraction of the cost and bring back a long tradition of public subscription in our country with the help of some open, sharing digital technology.

Any way, enough kvetching as they say around here (I’m writing this at 3rd Avenue and 24th Street), I’d like to draw attention to my favourite blue plaque. It’s high up on the wall of 22 Frith Street in London, above the Bar Italia, directly opposite Ronnie Scott’s jazz club – and it’s a model of British understatement:

British understatement

So basically “Here Television began”.

If you go to Bletchley Park, or certainly this was the case about five to ten years ago, you could see the concrete base of the hut where the world’s first programmable computer was created by Alan Turing. The hut was knocked down some years ago. The spot is (or was) not specifically marked. I remember standing there and thinking if this was in the USA there would be something pretty significant to mark this stupendous happening. “Here Computing began.” Or at least ”Here programmable Computing began.”

It was minus 13 the night I arrived here. As an Englishman in New York I might have said: “It’s a bit nippy”. But there’s a time for sang froid and a time for being big, bold and brassy…

4 for 66 (Happy Birthday David Bowie)

 

One Bowie

Two Bowie

 

To mark that special Londoner David Bowie’s 66th birthday today and the release of his new single Where Are We Now? here are four of his best ever songs:

1. Unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed (Space Oddity) – the height of his hippy phase and I’m a sucker for the blues harp
2. Life on Mars? (Hunky Dory) – from intimate to epic in the space 3’52″
3. Station to Station (Station to Station) – a journey and a half of electronic, stereoscopic, systematic, hydromatic, goodbuzzin’, cooltalkin’, highwalkin’, fastlivin’, evergivin’ self-dramatisation
4. Aladdin Sane (Aladdin Sane) – more madness, this time with crazy plinking, the perfect soundtrack to teenage chaos

Three Bowie

And now a line or two from each:

1. It must strain you to look down so far from your father’s house
   And I know what a louse like me in his house could do for you
   
2. Sailors fighting in the dance hall
   Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
   It’s the freakiest show
3. The return of the Thin White Duke
   Throwing darts
   In lovers’ eyes
4. Clutches of sad remains
   Waits for Aladdin Sane

My last Bowie adventure is here at Heddonism

Four. Four Bowies make a bunch – and so do many more.

Best of 2012

[a work in progress]

Film:
Silver Linings Playbook
Runner-up: Untouchable

Speedy – accompanied by Evelyn Glennie & Talvin Singh (Not So Silent Movies)
West Side Story with live orchestra (Albert Hall)
Searching for Sugarman
On The Road
Woody Allen: A Documentary

(2011 winner: Midnight in Paris)
(2010 [reluctant] winner: Toy Story 3)
(2009 winner: Inglourious Basterds)

Actor:
Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)
Runner-up: Anthony Hopkins (Hitchcock), Jared Gilman (Moonrise Kingdom)

(2011 winner: Owen Wilson (Midnight in Paris))
(2010 winner: Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network))
(2009 winner: Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds))

Actress:
Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
Runner-up: Helen Hunt (The Sessions)

(2011 winner: Carey Mulligan (Shame))
(2010 winner: Julianne Moore (The Kids Are Alright) )
(2009 winner: Carey Mulligan (An Education) )

Supporting Actor:
Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook)
Leonardo DiCaprio (Django Unchained)
Christopher Walken (Seven Psychopaths)
Alan Arkin (Argo)
Xavier Bardem (Skyfall)
William Macy (The Sessions)

(2011 winner: Corey Stoll (Midnight in Paris))
(2010 winner: Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are Alright) )
(2009 winner: Brad Pitt (Inglourious Basterds) )

Supporting Actress:
Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)
Helen Mirren (Hitchcock)
Kristen Stewart (On The Road)

(2011 winner: Shailene Woodley (The Descendants))
(2010 winner: Rebecca Hall (The Town) )
(2009 winner: Kristin Scott Thomas (Nowhere Boy) )

Director:
David O. Russell  (Silver Linings Playbook)
Runners-up: Walter Salles (On The Road), Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty)

(2011 winner: Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris))
(2010 winner: Ben Affleck (The Town) )
(2009 winner: Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds) )

Script:
David O. Russell  (Silver Linings Playbook)
Runners-up: Chris Terrio (Argo), Martin McDonagh (Seven Psychopaths), Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)

(2011 winner: Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris))
(2010 winner: The Social Network)
(2009 winner: The Hangover)

Cinemtography:
Roger Deakins (Skyfall)
Runner-up: Eric Gautier (On The Road)

Dean and Marylou getting it on

TV:
Olympic Opening Ceremony (BBC1)
Runner-up: The Audience (Channel 4)

Homeland, seasons 1 + 2 (Channel 4)
Grand Designs  (Channel 4)

Gig:

Van Morrison – Ronnie Scott’s
Dexy’s – Empire, Shepherds Bush
Bat for Lashes – The Forum

Gregory Porter – Bloomsbury Theatre
Patti Smith – Troxy, Limehouse

(2011 winner: Sinead O’Connor – St Johns at Hackney church)
(2010 winner: Gil Scott Heron – Somerset House)
(2009 winner: Hothouse Flowers – Community hall, Baltimore, West Cork)

LP:
One Day I’m Going to Soar – Dexys
How About I Be Me (And You Be You)? - Sinead O’Connor

This is PIL – Public Image Ltd.
Holly Cook – In Dub

(2011 winner: Johnny Boy Would Love This – various)
(2010 winner: Praise & Blame – Tom Jones)
(2009 winner: Sea Sew – Lisa Hannigan)

Single:
Harder Than You Think – Public Enemy
She Got a Wiggle – Dexys
One Drop – Public Image Ltd.
Reason With Me - Sinead O’Connor

(2011 winner: Movin’ Down the Line- Raphael Saadiq)
(2010 winner: What good am I? – Tom Jones)
(2009 winner: Glass – Bat for Lashes)

Book:
The Typewriter is Holy – Bill Morgan

(2011 winner: The Sisters Brothers – Patrick de Witt)
(2010 winner: Freedom – Jonathan Franzen)
(2009 winner: The Great Lover – Jill Dawson)

Art:
The Mystery of Appearance (Haunch of Venison)

Musee d’Orsay (post 2012 revamp)
(Preraphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde (Tate Britain))

(2011 winner: Angelheaded Hipsters – Allen Ginsberg (National Theatre))
(2010 winner: Paul Nash – The Elements – Dulwich Picture Gallery)
(2009 winner: Dream – Jaume Plensa)

Can We Talk About This?

Play:
Can We Talk About This? – DV8 (Lyttleton, NT)

Travelling Light – Nicholas Wright (NT)
She Stoops to Conquer – Oliver Goldsmith (NT)
Singing in the Rain (The Palace)
Jesus Christ Superstar (Millennium Dome)

(2011 winner: Frankenstein (NT))
(2010 winner: Jerusalem)
(2009 winner: August: Osage County)

Sports event:
London 2012 Olympic Games

Website:
Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee

(2011 winner: Instagram)
(2009 winner: Posterous)

Saddest loss:
Neil Armstrong
Dave Brubeck

Best of 2011
Best of 2010
Best of 2009

4 reasons to see Silver Linings Playbook

I’m just back from a screening in the plush, cosy screening room under the Covent Garden Hotel in Monmouth Street (which has the best Christmas lights in London). I’ve been chatting with the very charming, unpretentious, part-Irish Bradley Cooper who I mainly knew beforehand from great silly films like The Hangover and Wedding Crashers. Silver Linings Playbook is a very different kind of comedy, subtler, more authentic and more romantic. I laid my newly hatched theory on him that Jennifer Lawrence in this movie is very like Meg Tilly in The Big Chill, that vibrant young sexuality allied with a strong individuality, they even share that slightly oriental look – and she does a load of stretching and dancing stuff in that movie, Bradley kindly added to the theory. I think he was convinced – or just very polite. Especially for someone who’s just arrived this evening from LA (where he half lives, the rest of the time residing in his native Philadelphia). We talked a bit about acting with De Niro (he said how generous De Niro was on set to support his performance) and how strong De Niro’s performance is in this film, standing out from almost all of his recent roles. And then a bit about NFL, the older Enfant Terrible being the proud owner of an Eagles shirt from before his defection to the Patriots – which got us into teens and how this film has much of use to say about resilience and taking control in adversity. It’s a pretty much flawless script from David O. Russell, complemented by perfect, judicious improvisation. I asked him about the latter and he highlighted scenes where they went most to town, though within well defined parameters, De Niro’s method, like the parlay betting scene and the comparing meds scene. So the 4 reasons are…

1 The powerful chemistry between Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, not least in the dancing scenes

2 The exquisite direction by David O. Russell, which has the confidence of a man with a real vision (and a script he’s spent five years honing)

3 A fantastically diverse soundtrack which makes great use of Led Zep (What Is and What Should Never Be), the recently departed Dave Brubeck (Unsquare Dance and Maria) and the classic duet of Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash from Nashville Skyline (Girl from the North Country)

4 The uplifting treatment of a difficult mental health issue, highlighting the ubiquity of craziness and how positive and energising it can be.

Jennifer Lawrence

Meg Tilly

Jennifer in 2010s dancing gear

Meg in 1980s dancing gear

Musical Blind Spots

Am I blind or have I just closed my eyes?

This is a spin-off music game/chat from Magical Music Moments picking up on Doug Miller’s idea (did I mention his new book is available  from Amazon and all good bookshops which pay UK Corporation Tax now? – and I make an appearance in it alongside grander folk like Olympic gold medal rower Greg Searle). So here’s the game as set up by Doug:

Musicians for which you have a complete blind spot. My nominations – Bruce Springsteen, Otis Redding, Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro.

Of course the other half of the game is to persuade us we’re idiots for having these musical blind spots and why.

I’ll start with Tom Waits – great in Martin McDonagh‘s new movie Seven Psychopaths, wonderful in Rumblefish, but goddarn his ‘singing’ voice bugs the shit out of me. It always feels so artificial and inauthentic. I was listening to an old Inheritance Tracks podcast (BBC Radio 4) on my jog this morning, on which Ralph McTell played a Robert Johnson record he was given in lieu of pay at a gig in the 60s – that voice is everything Tom Waits would like to be – but ain’t.

Over to y’all…

Not an ounce of soul in her voice and often out of tune

Magical Music Moments

I’m just moving this parlour game over from the Inheritance Tracks post to its own space here.

The Game:

You have to pinpoint a transcendent moment in a track which constitutes a magical music moment. Provide URL of track in YouTube or similar and pinpoint the precise second the magic happens.

Moment #1 (Adam Gee)

This first one is based on a performance at the Royal Dublin Showgrounds – an uplifting moment when I realised Springsteen is at his best as a gospel/soul voice and got carried away on it.
My City of Ruins (Bruce Springsteen)
The moment is 4:07 but is indivisible from the build up 3:03-4:06
“With these hands With these hands With these hands With these hands”

Moment #2 (Adam Gee)

The second one is a massive cliche but no less powerful for that – it is one of The Great Rock Moments
Stairway To Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
4:18 at which point every fibre of you so needs those drums to come in (to deliver fully at 06:22 and 06:42)

Moment #3 (Doug Miller)

Yusef Lateef (Number 7)

One of the great live jazz albums is ‘Live at Peps’ by Yusef Lateef (Vols 1 and 2 are both great). The track is called ‘Number 7′. It’s got a great feel to it. You can hear the chat in the audience and the drinks being served behind the bar. Everything a great jazz club should be. There are two great changes – the first at 6.49 when a trumpet catches you unawares. The second a few seconds later when the piano comes in at the perfect moment and plays the blues. The audience responds and it’s recorded so well that you imagine yourself as an audience member. Yusef is now 92 and still playing. His album ‘Eastern Sounds’ is one of the great jazz albums – one of my top 10. But that’s another game.

More to follow…