busker

May 18, 1998

Joined château d'espair ... 6 years, humm.

Rowena, the Cobbler and I met at the Collins pub for boozy reminiscences and general shredding of others' reputations. The last of our training class.

Next clash of goblets - June 3 - when the Cobb leaves us for the Marxist halls of New York economics. And shortly after that, Rowena will be waddling off to do her mother n child thing, after which she says she'll be back (money, she says) but I wonder. Motherhood does strange things to a gal. Pretty odd things to a bloke, too.

Speaking of parenthood, Real Live Preacher has it right: "Getting a respectful nod from a teenager is huge."

Props to E for that one.

Lurve, Actually

Which I watched with Anna, enjoyed the DVD, with all the special features:

• Director Richard Curtis' fascinating discussion of the music
• Commentary by Grant, Curtis, Firth, and the talented and 2-B-watched young Thomas Sangster (whose absence might have enabled more entertaining and laddish chatter)
• Deleted scenes that for once actually added to ones understanding.

A DVD I've decided to buy.

Memorables:

• Liam Neeson's wonderful acccent. (I also have a Neeson tale: my darling elder daughter spent her gap year away from Seattle in London, where she got a job with Habitat. Enter a customer whose name she just could not get. In the end she had to ask him to spell it - "I thought he looked a bit puzzled" - as her fellow shopgirls stood at a distance gawping.

  "L-I-A-M  N-E-E-S-O-N," enunciated the tall shopper.)

• The utterly amazing and loveable Bill Nighy who is the spitting image of our pal, Terry Davies of Wandsworth Road
• That guitarist in the pulpit at the wedding? How could he be anything but the real thing with the name of Jont Wittingtomt?
• Ra-a-ther fancied the blonde in the Wisconsin bar scene, name of January Jones, no less.
• We'll definitely hear more of the songbird chickadee that Sam/Thomas was so painfully in love: Olive Olson. Watch that name. She will be big.
• Hugh Grant - perfect. And that speech:

  "I love that word relationship. Covers all manner of sins, doesn't it? I fear this has become a bad relationship, a relationship based on the President taking exactly what he wants and casually ignoring all the things that really matter to ... (deep look at Martine McCutcheon) ... Britain.
  
  We may be a small country, but we're a great one, too: a country of Shakespeare, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter, David Beckham's right foot ... David Beckham's left foot, come to that.
  
  A friend that bullies us is no longer a friend and since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward I'll be prepared to be much stronger ... and the President should be prepared for that." ... Bedlam.

Raban in ArtDish

Gosh - so many flattering comments coming in about the review.

Was asked by the sainted editor, the upstanding Jim Demetre, to deliver a standard 600 words on Jonathan Raban's latest (and only second) novel, WaxWings.

Had no idea ArtDish was so widely heeded.

I'm now pointing folks to JR's excellent piece from the Grauniad that aspiring must-read Stranger picked up.

Venables Thompson & Carr

Dis-donc! A new name joins the "prey" list of those living in secrecy but whom it'd surely not be that difficult for seasoned Net-sleuths to trace and tattle-tale?

Background:

• High Court has rejected an appeal against the injunction ensuring that Maxine Carr's appearance, movements or whereabouts be kept secret. Borinngg. Spoil-sport.
• The judgement came hours after Carr, 27, was released from prison this morning after serving half of the three-and-a-half year sentence she got for lying for Soham murderer Ian Huntley.
• The beak said it was "necessary and proportionate" ... party-pooper.
• The court was told that Carr had received a number of death threats, the most recent four days ago which said she would be "dead in six days". Yeehaww! The spirit of Vengeance lives.
• Her lawyers argued that she needs protection in the same way as Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, the boys who murdered two-year-old James Bulger.
• Carr was found guilty at the Old Bailey last year of perverting the course of justice by lying to police to provide an alibi for Huntley, who murdered 10-year-old Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

Yes yes - that's as may be. Now can we just get on with the chase ...

JJC ~ RIP

Still can't bring myself to write to Sheila and John and of course if I dally too long, it'll be too late.

Meanwhile ...

• Headline in Daily Telegraph:Briton killed as thieves raid villa

  "A British architect was one of four people stabbed to death by thieves at a luxury villa on the Philippine resort island of Boracay, police said yesterday.

  John Cowperthwaite, who lived in Hong Kong and was believed to have been a married father in his late 50s, was a guest of a German businessman also killed in the attack.

  The other victims were Manfred Schoeni, a leading art dealer in Hong Kong, and a Filipino maid. Police, who found two bloodstained knives in the kitchen, said they suspected robbery as the motive." - Alex Spillius, Foreign Staff

• Also, announcement in the Teleg.
• Philippino press running a story about a German being a person d'interêt
• Times Online going into detail.
• City of St Andrews (Scotland) coverage.

Hamish RIP

I'm a little shocked to pen anything right now, but the Blog must go on, right?

I learned today that my oldest pal, dating back to my Hong Kong youth and godfather of my elder daughter, had been murdered on the luxury Philippino isle of Borocay.

I'd seen the Hong Kong reportage of the killing of antiques doyen, Mannfred Schoeni but it hadn't mentioned Hamish - referred to in the press as John Cowperthwaite.

Then I followed a link, and got the full gory details.

Since then, the rumour mill has been at work, along the lines of this from an insider who doesn't usually deal in guesswork:

"Not sure if its interesting or not, but it makes one wonder.

As far as I can make out, it seems that Hamish was going to be involved in a new project on Boracay and Mannfred, (who has made a lot of what I suspect is dodgy money) was investing in the project.

The developer was the other guy.

I vaguely knew Mannfred ... he managed to make very big bucks in a short time in HK and then transferred to Africa. I suppose they pissed off some locals. It's not the first time this has happened in this area. Anyway, pretty rum stuff."

Marking changed text

OK, so I have Liz Castro's link, but what better aide memoire than to paste special tips up right here?:

To mark newly inserted text:

1. Type <ins>
2. Type the new text
3. Type the </ins>

To mark the deleted text:

1. Place cursor before text wished to mark as del
2. Type <del>
3. Place cursor after text for deletion
4. Type </del>

Cliff and the Shads

Are there 4 words more capable of sending me into a swoon and, when I pick myself up, stumbling for the Telecaster and cranking the Peavey up to 11? There are not.

And on yesterday's NPR I hear of a Shad's reunion tour.

What more obvious URL that 'cliffandshads' for everything you need to know?

Linking off that seems to be a dedicated page to Hank B and the lads, and the rest are frames I can't pin down, so I can't send you direct to tour details or Goran's backing tracks site.

Hank B Marvin was the first wielder of a Fender Strat and the music of the Shadows was the only crutch around to see me thru soul-crippling, spirit-humbling years at a second school I did time in.

I'm 'mid a Shads festschrift as I type thanks to my 6-album boxed set of the sounds that kept us going: 'Apache', of course, but we all have tunes that brought a special thrill. In order,

• Dance On!
• Wonderful land
• Shadoogie
• Blue Star
• Wonderful Land
• Find Me a Golden Street
• Kon-Ti-Ki
• Foot Tapper
• and the first time I heard the song, 'All My Sorrows/Trials'

I may even fly over for one of their gigs - savour the sheer horror of congregating with a room full of other Shads fans.

I also hear that (Sir) Cliff might join them on-stage. Eeeuuw - what a grisly thought.