Morals, manners, and customs of the people

To shew that a deplorable laxity of morals prevails, I need only refer my readers to the section on roads; they will there see a specimen of those of the higher ranks; and for a sample of those in the middling and lower ranks I must send them to Ennis on a Sunday morning; there they will see shops open, goods hanging at the doors for sale, standings in the streets, timber for sale leaning against the sessions-house, in short every appearance of business as there was on the previous market day; and many neighbouring ladies defer their shopping until that day, after paying their devotions to heaven, totally regardless of the fourth commandment. Had I not frequently seen magistrates sharing in this monstrous abuse of the sabbath, I could not have thought there was one in the town; it surely would be a meritorious act of the Lord Chancellor to supersede the abetters of such gross impiety.

The children, even infants, in this town are particularly wicked, and the ears (not of the clergy, magistrates, or church-wardens) are constantly grated by the most shocking and novel cursing and swearing.

A curious custom prevails in a part of this county; when a beast is slaughtered, the smith claims, and in some instances receives the head of the beast; formerly it was more general, but some have sense enough to refuse such a sacrifice to Vulca; probably the custom originated in a renumeration for the use of his sledge and his sinewy arm in knocking down the beast; however it may have been introduced, it is or was practiced lately in the Western isles, for Dr. Johnson in his Tour, page 183, informs us, that the smith has the head, the piper the udder, (how appropriate!) the weaver and others so many pieces, that a small share falls to the laird.

In many places gentlemen are called by the country people by their christian names, without any of those additions, which modern pride expects from inferiors; on the road to Skarriff, I enquired from a poor woman, who lived in a gentleman’s house within view; she said, “Charley;” pray who is Charley? “Arrah don’t you know Charley? Why you must be a stranger in the country, or you’d know Charley O’Callaghan,” meaning Mr. O’Callaghan of St. Catherine’s.

Statistical Survey of the County of Clare, 1808

Travelling

is the name of a rather wonderful late-70’s track by Burning Spear, but I am not here to dicuss the finer points of his musical style. I am, rather pondering the delight I take in reading travel books. At present, one of the five books I have on the go is Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, a huge, sprawling travelogue-history lesson-ethnographic expedition-just about everything else, based around the author’s three trips to the new Yugoslav state in the 1930’s. The book is a delight in so many ways, and provides just as much insight into British social mores of the time as it does those of the Balkans, but it is, essentially, a travelogue. And I have just passed on the other most enjoyable book I have read in the last year, From the Holy Mountain, again a socio-historical travelogue.

Now, I have to admit to be struggling with fiction as a whole these days. Most of what I read is either academically related to my interests, or collections of essays – most of my reading is done ont he Tube, and I find it almost impossible to immerse myself in a longer work. The critical and destructive nature of my personality also precludes me from engaging with a great deal of fiction, as I tend to analyse as I read, and this gets in the way of enjoyment on the whole.

So travel literature appeals to me. Being appallingly British and having a fear of travelling anywhere more exotic than Bognor Regis means that there are a wealth of countries I can explore in this manner as I pass through East Acton. I always remember being most taken with Palin’s journeys and the rash of ‘Great Railway Journeys’ and so on that followed – both Whicker and Michelmore left me cold as a child, but the new, budget travellers who sought to get away from the crowds (Ian Wright – not the footballer was one of them, and the late Pete McCarthy as well). It was so much easier to see the sights of Gambia or somewhere else I would need inoculations to visit at 8.30 on a Thursday night than to actually have to travel there. A sanitised, but grubby, nonetheless, picture of more unusual destinations has always appealed.

Having pondered this more over the last few days, particularly because I am not entirely happy with what I have written, there are further parts to my interest in this kind of literature. Firstly, the notion of someone who is intrinsically an ‘outsider’, linguistically, politically, ethnically, especially if they are British (and so are not an outsider to my cultural poles), yet not a complete innocent abroad, is central to my appreciation.

Writers on their native countries never seem to do it for me – maybe there are too many preconceptions confirmed – the exception(s) to this in my experience have been the English-speaking Irish writers of the late 19th/early 20th centuries, especially Synge, although, once again, the wild west of Ireland in those days was a world away, lingusitically, socially, religiously, and so on from his middle-class Protestant County Dublin upbringing. The other issue is tht writers on their own countries tend to have an agenda, as Radischev, or are simply caught up in their own passion for the area – Wainwright’s guides to the Lake District, etc, I’m sure are perfectly usuable, but the BBC has recently remade them for television and added a wealth of new information about both the local areas and about the genesis of the guides themselves.

So, anyway, to use Russian Formalist terminology, there is a need for ‘ostranenie‘, or defamiliarisation – it gives a far greater insight into both the country and the writer themself – Dostoevskii’s ‘Winter Notes on Summer Impressions’ works on so many levels, and the descriptions of London are frequently as apt today as they were 150 or so years ago, but the very nature of these descriptions, the aspects of life in the modern centre of the Great British Empire at the time, the parallels he sees with Russia, are all echoed throughout his later writings, and few writers have laid bare every aspect of their personality as freely as dear old F.M.D.

St Petersburg

is not a place I have spent a great deal of time, physically at least, ten days altogether at most. It does, however, loom large over my Russophilia, the city central to both Dostoevskii and Gogol’s major works, and the Bronze Horseman lent his name to that long poem by that other fellow. Now, you may ask, why on earth am I posting about a city I know very little about – I have read the histories, have read the fiction, and now I am reading a rather wonderful books called ‘Mapping St Petersburg‘ by a North American academic named Julie Buckler – this book, or at least the parts I have read so far seeks to locate those parts of Petersburg that have dropped between the cracks, neither the grand historical scheme, nor the festering slums of Fedor Mikhailovich, but the literature, lore and urban legends that were built up by the residents of the city themselves, both second (third and fourth) rate writers, and by the ordinary inhabitants. This passage, I think gives a flavour:

‘A round black hat was seen floating on the Fontanka near Ismailovskii Bridge on another occasion. A crowd of idlers gather to watch the “inexpensive entertainment,” and Fontanka residents sent their servants out to find out what was happening. The Guards officers took full advantage of the occasion, and Pylaiev records the different story-versions that sprang up along the Petersburg waterways. By the Panteleimonskii Bridge, it was said that the hat belonged to “a clerk, who drowned himself from grief because he was given no recompense when those lower than he in rank and position each received a Stanislav order.” By the Simeonovskii Bridge, the drowned clerk became “a young Kolomna poet, who threw himself into the Fontanka because the publisher of a particular journal did not want to print his verses.”‘

And so the variations continue…

Seefeel

are a band I missed entirely in my indie-kid youth – they were seemingly (according to Wikipedia) due to be the next big thing before Blur and Oasis put music back about 40 years. Anyway, the point is that their album “Quique” has been re-released, and I have bought it. On the basis that it has had remarkably good reviews all over the place, and the fact it is described as “dubby” – guaranteed to make me want to buy it.

“Dubby” is one thing it is not – at least in the classical Jamaican sense – it actually reminds me more of the stranger Lee Perry b-sides, especially those he made with Augustus Pablo. There is frequently a sinuous bassline (and yes, it does sound like Jah Wobble, as many of the reviewers have noted), but this underpins an ever-changing shimmering chorus of guitars and vocals layered time upon time upon each other.

The effect is quite unlike anything else I’ve ever heard – one is simply gently swept along by the music – there are no jagged edges – David Mancuso claimed that he wanted to recreate the sounds of an eddying stream within the Loft, and this is the closest I have ever come to hearing something than reminds me of this.

I am slowly taking my first steps into the world of ambient music - early exposure to the Orb had put me off it, but what is there to life if one cannot change one’s opinion with age, gradually reconciling yourself with those things that so infuriated you in your youth? It is going to be a journey, no doubt with many false starts, not least when I think the CD is playing when I have forgotten to press play (apart from the track time increasing, one can never be sure), and one full of unusual, yet very quiet, noises.

This week

Terry Eagleton
Marcel Theroux
Jimi Tenor
Nick Drake
Pink Martini
Bjork

Arnold Schwarzenegger

I will be on sabbatical leave from the diary for the next couple of weeks – I am snowed under at work and looking at a computer screen is about the last thing I want to do when I get in in the evening.

32 inches

is my waist size – or so I thought. Today I bought two pairs of shorts, without trying them on, as they were both marked 32 inch waist. Now, I got them home and tried the first pair on. Fine, fit no problem. I then took the second pair from the bag. Please note, I did not at this point eat a full English breakfast, or several pies, or bodybuilding supplement. I put them on, or rather, I pulled them up to my waist, but I could not do the flies or the button up – and not just hat they are tight, or that I have to breathe in to get them on. There is a good 2 inch gap between the button and the hole. I will return them tomorrow and get a pair of 34’s (after having tried them!). But can anyone explain this to me – I understand that trousers have different cuts, but shorts?

Lou Reed

Not a perfect day, but a most enjoyable evening. Simply sitting and playing football on my 360 and listening to some new CDs. Not much, you may think. This has been the first evening that my mind and body have both been functioning to a sufficient level to allow me to apply my motor skills to moving virtual players around a pitch.

The music is more important, however, as this is one of the first time I have sat down and listened to a whole album in months. Usually, as is the way when you have a portable music player of any type, you forward to the songs you like, and with an MP3 player, you don’t even get the joy of snatches of songs as you stop to hear how much more of the cassette you have to fast-forward.

Secondly, it is actually an event – I remember that there was a slightly ritualistic nature to playing vinyl – it is a large black disc that you have to turn over after 30 minutes or so, and there is something tangible to the experience – this is less so with CDs, but it is unusual for me to sit down uninterrupted without reading or doing the cleaning. And without, again skipping tracks (although this is mainly due to the lack of batteries for the remote control).

So, I hear you ask, what are you listening to? Well, dear readers, Leonard Cohen features quite strongly. His delightfully miserable first three albums have just been reissued, and I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Beyond this, I have been engaging with German dance music (not the standard dreadful techno) in the form of Compost’s Black Label series – a wonderfully eclectic mixture of the sounds that appeal to the more left-field dancefloors of Europe.

The final CDs have been an attempt to engage with youth – firstly revisiting my own in the form of Rumble in the Jungle – these are tracks I remember hearing John Peel play back in the day – parallel to dub reggae – and I remember being entirely mystified as to how someone so beloved of the NME at the time, and someone who played grunge and American indie music (as was the fashion at the time) could play this music that sounded like angry Jamaican men shouting at a drum machine that kept malfunctioning – as far as I was concerned at the time, one could like one form of music only. For the rest of your life. Ironic, no? Anyway, here is General Levy and M-People (not that one) with ‘Incredible’

The final CD, an attempt (of sorts) to engage with the youth of today has pleasantly surprised me. I had heard masses about ‘dubstep’, as it is termed, a musical movement from the south of London that seemingly has grown out of the UK garage scene and mixed it with reggae, jazz, hiphop, brokenbeat and jungle sensibilities. I had envisaged a form of music utterly impenetrable to me – although the influences are my bread and butter, my fear was of Craig David-style pap. Burial, as those of you who have received a recent set of CDs will know, sound like Massive Attack with slightly unusual beat sand time signatures, and this is the way I would categorise the little dubstep I have heard.

Today’s offering was the album by Skream!, and it reveals a depth of understanding and musicianship that belies his youth – there are all of the influences above on the album, and they are all part of an organic whole. The standout track for me, so far at least, is ‘Check-It’, featuring the talents of Warrior Queen – a wonderfully warped dancehall track. Anyway, I am pausing and hesitating now. The point is, it is rather good.

Are you lonesome tonight?

Then spare a thought for George, who is, quite possibly the last of his species (Geochelone nigra abingdoni) on the Earth, and, it seems, disinterested in continuing his line – efforts to extract sperm and cross-breed with other local tortoise species have failed, and the search is on for a female of the same species who seems to be breeding on another of the islands. $10,000 is quite a bit of money. Would it be wrong for me to become a tortoise pimp?