Gittern

Sad Days

2008-01-11T02:27:00.000-08:00

Today we say goodbye to Mum, at Hereford crematorium, as she wished. When she died on 28th December it was the end of a three month stay in hospital and in the words of the cliche, a blessed release from illness. Cliche, but as it turns out true. We will try our best to celebrate a life, not just to be tearful about a death, remembering especially as her sons what she made of us. I thank God for my good fortune in being her son.

Rant of the Day

2007-12-18T08:44:00.000-08:00

Identity Cards! I used to be against them on the grounds that I don't want anyone in authority to have the right to ask me to prove who I am when I'm simply going about my everyday life.

Now, I'm against putting any more information about myself into the hands of the egregious incompetents who run our beloved country.

I've had the pleasure and privilege of consulting assignments at the highest levels of Whitehall, and while I have a lot of time for many of the people I served there, I long ago came to the conclusion that large UK government departments are (literally) incorrigible. The lethal mix of Ministers' incapability of visualising the challenges of implementing their policies and the inefficiency of every aspect of civil service administration is just too intractible to be reformed. I'll never vote Tory, but the right wing are right when they point to too much government as the nub of the problem. Central government is an oversized badly-led nightmare in the UK.

Ask yourself, 'Which do I really want, a health service and an education system that works, or massive government systems that don't?' Until we get services provided by locally-accountable people we can actually eyeball, and vote out smartly when they fail to meet ordinary decent standards of performance, we're doomed to fourth-class public services.

As for identity cards, the cynics will say I shouldn't worry because they'll never get off the ground. Wrong! They'll stagger into the air at enormous cost, then they'll be abused by the same berks that willed them into existence. You know I'm right! Be very afraid!

Jazz at the Crown, Alrewas

2007-12-18T02:37:00.000-08:00

Played the Crown at Alrewas, on the A38, last night with John Everett's band, the Red Dragons. The session was fun, but the turnout poor. Pete, the lovely boss of the Crown, who is also a fair pianist himself, deserves better support for the live jazz he puts on every Monday evening.
John is chipping in a few bob to help finance an ad in Jazz Guide in the New Year and Pete has a good programme of Midlands bands lined up in Jan and Feb.

Get yerselves down there!

Fantastic new investment opportunity - act now!

2007-12-17T07:31:00.000-08:00

With Granny1 (94) and Granny2 (87) both in nursing homes, I'm seeing more than my fair share of these institutions. Can't help noticing that most of the clients are women. And inevitably, the regime and the programmes are geared up for the interests and pastimes of old ladies.

Makes you think, God help me if I ever have to resort to one of these places, I'd lose the will to live pretty fast. Much as that might suit any surviving relatives, I 'm thinking there must be a better solution for us aging chaps.

Well, I've thought of it. I'm thinking of starting a chain of Nursing Pubs. Comfortable rooms, all barmaids qualified nurses, dartboards set low enough to reach from the wheelchair - you get the picture? All I need is some starting capital.

Rant of the Day

2007-12-17T07:00:00.000-08:00

I'm just coming to this morning, half listening to the Today Programme, and I hear some sad politician from the Minstry of Defence assuring us that the handover of Basra to the local militias is actually a great victory and I should be leaping out of bed to raise three hearty cheers.

Is it just me, or is the real truth that we've demonstrated our immense talent for destroying things (people, infrastructure, social fabric etc) while showing a complete failure of imagination and execution in recreating a viable society for the destructees?

Later in the morning I hear some other stuff about (1) standards in our schools (2) failures in our planning for flood defences (3) some lady who's not allowed to make a financial contribution to her cancer treatment unless she goes totally private, which she can't afford, so would she mind just dying quietly and not disturbing the system!

By this stage I'm feeling seriously 'disgusted of Pinner'. Then a brilliant idea occurs. It goes like this: I can't possibly vote for the Labour lot, (too mendacious, too incompetent) nor the Tories (just the same kinds of cockups when they were in power). The Libs would be nice but it probably won't happen. Bloody politicians in this country are hopeless, what can I do? I know! Privatisation seems to be the way forward in other spheres, so why not in Government?

Anybody care to join me in a movement to offer a contract for the Governance of Britain to some other country with a decent track record of competence? My prefered bidders would include the Finns (fantastic education system, pretty good on health and no mad ideas about militaristic adventurism); the Swiss (generally harmless, sound on economics and their trains run on time); or the Kiwis (decent folk to the last man and women, don't do soccer, and still have proper policemen).

Just think, if we could only get one or other of the above to run things for us, the rest of us wouldn't have to wake up every morning feeling ashamed of the dick-heads we're saddled with now! I suppose unemployment stats would suffer (all those redundancies in Westminster and Whitehall) but, you know, I could live with that!

Another great night at Abbey Jazz

2007-12-17T06:31:00.000-08:00

Another fantastic Sunday night at Abbey Jazz in Malvern. Terry Roberts and Tony Pipkin on tenor and trumpet respectively; Rod Kelly on piano; Martin Emeny drums; Len Thwaites bass and me on guitar. Full house the other side of the mics for this last session of 2007. You just knew it was going to be hot from the first number - a bebop type number I'd never played before, called Apple Honey.

Roberts is a lovely player - inventive, tasteful and exciting. He brought his tenor, alto and clarinet. Tony Pipkin turned up with trumpet, flugelhorn, cornet and something like a miniature tuba, so though there were only two of them in the front line, it looked like a music shop out there. Great choice of numbers all evening - everything from swing standards to bossas, and some of Rod Kelly's speciality rockin' blues.

Its amazing how Len Thwaites gets the combination of musicians, different every session, to fit together like gloves. You're always on your mettle in the rhythm section, as each new combination of front line players wants to do their favourite numbers. That means you're playing, more often than not, numbers you're seeing/hearing for the first time. A good chord book is a life saver at Malvern!

I've been playing at Malvern for a year now and I can't remember a single occasion when the music's been boring. It's no wonder the best people enjoy playing there - somehow we seem to generate a freshness I thought was being lost in a lot of the UK jazz scene.

I know many of the Malvern audience go often to other clubs, where they tend to hear established bands playing the same 20 or 30 numbers time and again. If jazz is to be worth doing, you've got to take risks. I think too, you've got to let the audience know you're enjoying yourselves - it's infectious and I can never understand why so many of the trad bands seem to ignore their audiences and behave as if they were having a private practice.

Still, the great thing is that there's so much live jazz going on in the Midlands. Mind you, the bands and the audiences are getting greyer and greyer. Still, if you get too old to stamp your feet you can always click your dentures!