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The Blues Brothers Experience

Work’s pretty challenging again at the moment – four bids to get out of the door this week! So I’m pretty tired, and really the last thing I wanted to do was to drag myself out again in the evening. A night in front of the telly sounded really attractive! However, there was a Blues Brothers tribute band on at Malvern Theatres, for one night only, and I had a ticket. I knew I’d enjoy it if I made myself go, so I gave myself a good talking to and made a huge effort to get out of the house.

I went to a Blues Brothers evening about eighteen months ago and was expecting a repeat of the same act. But this one was clearly a different show – the Blues Brothers Experience rather than the Blues Brothers Approved. Who would have thought there was enough demand for two competing tribute shows? In fact, I’m not entirely sure that there is – the Forum Theatre must have been no more than a third full, which was a shame.

Nevertheless, despite the lack of atmosphere from the audience, I did thoroughly enjoy myself once the evening got started. The band rattled through most of the standard Blues Brothers canon, and threw in several extra numbers for good measure. The main singers did a pretty good impression of Jake and Elwood Blues, and “Elwood” in particular had the body language as well as the voice down to a tee. There was also a female singer with a very powerful voice, who did a good Aretha Franklin take-off in “Think”. The guitarists were also very good, with the bass guitarist spending much of his time walking around moodily, pipe clenched between his teeth, doing an uncanny impression of Donald “Duck” Dunn from the film.

The only let-down was the horn section. There were four of them, but they clearly weren’t as comfortable with the music as the others. One of them, the saxophonist, clearly had the sheet music in front of her and was playing from it, and seemed very uncertain about what was going on. I did wonder whether she was an understudy, playing in her first gig! Looking at the band’s website afterwards, it appears that the core team (singers, guitarists, keyboards, drummer) form a constant nucleus of the band, and they bring in session musicians to play sax, trombone and horn. That certainly fitted with the impression I’d got that the horn section were far less a polished act than the others.

It was a very enjoyable, if extremely loud, evening. I got home still singing along to “Shake your Tailfeather”! I might even have to put the DVD of the film on this weekend and remind myself of the context of all the songs……

11 10 2014 icyjumbo Day out Comments Off on The Blues Brothers Experience Permalink

From Adrian’s Wall to Hadrain’s Wall

It was particularly timely that I went to see Adrian’s Wall, the new play by the local Writer-in-Residence about four misfits walking the length of Hadrian’s Wall. I’ve recently started a new “MOOC” online course studying the Wall itself. The course is on the FutureLearn platform, and is being run by Newcastle University. The Wall is effectively in their “back garden”, and unsurprisingly they have a number of world-class experts on the subject.

The course is taking a very wide ranging and multi-disciplinary look at the subject of Hadrian’s Wall. So far, we’ve studied the structure of the wall itself, and learned about the Roman soldiers who garrisoned it. I remember visiting the Wall on holiday with my parents and sister when I was about seven. It was grey and misty, and I remember thinking about how cold and far from home the Romans must have felt. I was imagining that they were from Rome itself, which is a common misconception. I was surprised to learn last week that the majority of soldiers on the wall came from what is now France and Germany, and not from Italy at all!

So far this week the course has been looking at the people who lived on and around the wall, including in the civilian settlements adjacent to the forts. It’s involved looking at LIDAR and magnetometry surveys of several forts, and I’ve followed some of the links that other students have posted to survey reports, dig diaries, and the occasional episode of Time Team. It’s all very interesting, and I’m learning a lot – more than I was expecting to in fact. Christopher and I went on a very interesting study trip to Hadrian’s Wall a good few years ago, when we visited all the major sites accompanied by English Heritage archaeologists, and even attended talks by some of the guest lecturers on the course. So I was expecting to find that much of the material on the course was familiar to me. I do indeed know the basics already, but the course has been very well pitched, covering some new discoveries and reinterpretations, and going into considerable depth – with links provided for the student to go deeper yet. That’s the only problem really – I just don’t haven enough spare time to click on every link and explore round the margins as I would like!

08 10 2014 icyjumbo status Comments Off on From Adrian’s Wall to Hadrain’s Wall Permalink

The definition of “middle class”

I was at Waitrose this afternoon, doing my regular food shop. Ahead of me in the queue for the till was someone I can only describe as a “Yummy Mummy” – somewhat floaty clothes, immaculate make-up, and a trolley full of organic baby food. She was clearly a signed-up member of the MyWaitrose loyalty-card club, and had been emailed a voucher with money off her shopping. However, she hadn’t actually bothered to print out the voucher from the email. Instead, she’d brought her iPad along to the shop, opened up the email in the till queue, and expected the till assistant to scan it in from the screen. But the barcode scanner was apparently confused – possibly by the backlit screen, possibly because the barcode was zoomed in too far (and when the woman tried resizing it, she just brought up the keyboard, so that didn’t work). In the end, she had to read out the number off the screen, while the assistant fat-fingered it into the till, and everyone stared at her for holding the queue up.

I did laugh to myself and think “Only at Waitrose……”

04 10 2014 icyjumbo food Comments (1) Permalink

Back at the Pottery

Jon the Potter at Eastnor Pottery generally doesn’t run his throwing workshops over the summer, finding that there is more demand for family and child-centric activities over the holidays. However, now that the schools are back, he’s restarted his weekend throwing courses and workshops aimed at adults. I was keen to get back into the rhythm after several months off, so it was good to spend Sunday morning at the pottery throwing a succession of jugs, saucers and bowls.

For the last eleven months they’ve had an apprentice working there, training him up “on the job” – not just in the technical skills of throwing, glazing and firing pots, but also in the skills needed to run a small creative business, teach and lead classes, develop and pitch projects, and work with the wider public. Unlike the traditional engineering apprentices we employ at work, who are on three-year courses, this is a one-year apprenticeship, and in just under a month he will be finished, and can call himself a “Community Artist”. I hadn’t even realised that such a profession formally existed, let alone that there is an accredited training course leading to it!

I had a chat with the soon-to-be-ex-apprentice yesterday in between throwing my pots. He plans to stay on at Eastnor Pottery after he completes his apprenticeship, working there part-time while he builds up a portfolio of projects and opportunities. He had always wanted to make his living from “making things” as he put it, and the apprenticeship has been a way for him to build skills and bolster his CV to give him a leg-up in the creative industries. It seems to have been something of a win-win: the pottery gains an employee trained up in their way of doing things, and the apprentice gets paid to do on-the-job training, and learns skills that would not be taught at university.

29 09 2014 icyjumbo Day out Comments Off on Back at the Pottery Permalink

Freezer-gate

The new cleaners have got off to a somewhat shaky start. They certainly turn up on time every week, are much more reliable in that respect than my previous cleaning company. And they do a pretty good job at keeping the house relatively clean. However, there was a definite problem last week that has led to me laying an Official Complaint.

I noticed it on Saturday evening when I got back from the theatre, and slipped on the kitchen floor. That was a surprise. I soon found out that the reason I’d slipped was that I’d stepped in a puddle that really shouldn’t have been there. A big puddle. Caused by my freezer gently defrosting itself all over the floor.

A search for the underlying cause didn’t take long. My freezer had been unplugged at the wall, and left unplugged. The cleaners must have selected a socket at random to plug in their vacuum cleaner, and unfortunately picked the one with the most disastrous consequences. That is despite there being three unused floor-level sockets in the kitchen, any one of which would be ideal for the vacuum cleaner. Since the cleaners had been around on Thursday afternoon, the freezer had been switched off for forty-eight hours, so it was no wonder it was defrosting.

I said a very rude word, or rather produced a fluent stream of invective, and fetched the bin bags. The freezer had been pretty much full – of meat, casseroles, stews etc – and everything had to go. I was extremely pissed off. I also used up pretty much all of my tea-towels mopping up the extensive puddle on the kitchen floor.

I phoned the cleaning firm this morning to make an official complaint. I have said that under no circumstances should they unplug anything without checking first – there are plenty of unused sockets they can use. I have asked for and received a full apology, and will be getting a discount off this month’s cleaning bill to reflect the financial loss of a full freezer’s worth of food.

I’ve also stuck a label on the freezer plug saying “Do NOT unplug!” Hopefully that should prevent a repetition. It’s all very well having a defrosted freezer, but I’d much rather do it under my control and at a time of my choosing!

24 09 2014 icyjumbo house
invective Comments (3) Permalink

Adrian’s Wall

There is a brand new play on at Malvern Theatres this week, by their Writer in Residence, Nick Wilkes. Last time Malvern Theatres had a resident playwright, it was George Bernard Shaw, so this new guy has quite a bit to live up to! This new play was billed as a comedy, so I thought I’d treat myself to a seat at the Saturday matinée, to round off a very long and busy week at work.

The eponymous Adrian has just turned forty, and is having something of a mid-life crisis. He resolves to walk the length of Hadrian’s Wall, inspired by a long-ago project in primary school, and in the company of a couple of classmates from that time. All three of them are somewhat inadequate, both personally and in their preparedness, but before they get too horribly lost, they stumble upon a mysterious stranger who helps them complete their trek along the wall. The deep sadnesses in all their lives are revealed through flash-backs, but there were also snort-out-loud funny bits too.

I thought the star of the afternoon was in fact the set. A section of Hadrian’s Wall had been recreated across the middle of the auditorium, and the play was performed with the audience sitting facing each other to the north and south of the wall. When I took my seat before the play started, there was a middle-aged man in an anorak, walking boots and gaiters, sitting on the wall eating a sandwich – Adrian himself as it turned out, waiting for his classmates to join him at the start of the walk.

I enjoyed the play. It was at times both funny and moving, and it was interesting seeing the four misfits bond together into a team over the length of the walk. It’s good that Malvern Theatres is getting involved in commissioning new writing, as well as being firmly on the pre-West End touring circuit.

20 09 2014 icyjumbo Day out Comments Off on Adrian’s Wall Permalink

The Monogram Murders

There is a new Hercule Poirot murder mystery story just published. The literary estate of Agatha Christie has finally given in to the lures of a follow-on, and commissioned Sophie Hannah to write a new book in the style of Agatha Christie. I thoroughly enjoy a classic Christie murder mystery, and I think I must have read all of her books over the past thirty-odd years.

This was an occasion when I clearly saw both the benefits and the perils of having an iPad with the Kindle app installed, and a linked account on Amazon. Within less than a minute of reading a positive review of The Monogram Murders in my Saturday newspaper, I’d found it on-line, ordered it, downloaded it, and started reading! It’s no wonder that the independent bookshop in Malvern was driven out of business, but there is no way to compete with that level of convenience.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. The story was gripping, well-written, and very much in the style of Christie herself. Poirot was as conceited and infuriating as ever, and drove his long-suffering sidekick to distraction as he usually does. It was a new sidekick this time though – instead of Captain Hastings or Inspector Japp, we were introduced to Inspector Catchpool of Scotland Yard who narrated the story.

The plot had enough twists in it to be satisfying, and I only spotted some of them coming. I think I shall have to read the denouement chapter again, slowly, as revelation succeeded revelation thick and fast, and I want to check again for loose ends. I don’t think I’ll find any though – the author clearly knows her stuff.

Overall, I’d say this is a good addition to the Christie canon. Not a masterpiece like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, but not a thin pastiche either. Should Hannah be commissioned to write more Poirot novels, I would certainly consider buying them.

14 09 2014 icyjumbo book Comments Off on The Monogram Murders Permalink

The Potato Lorry Mystery – Solved!

It’s potato harvest season again. As I mentioned last year, every ten minutes from dawn to dusk, a tractor with a heavily loaded trailer full of potatoes goes down the hill past my house, and returns later back up the hill with a heap of potato-free soil in the trailer. This goes on daily for at least two months. Someone local is clearly collecting potatoes from farms all over the area. It’s been bugging me for a few years as to what is going on. Well, I think I’ve solved the mystery.

My neighbour, Elspeth, came round earlier this evening with some surplus runner beans from her garden. They were so fresh, they were still warm from the sun. I shall enjoy having some with my dinner tonight. Anyway, not only has Elspeth lived here for many years, she coordinates the local Neighbourhood Watch so knows all the local residents. So I asked her what she knew about the potato lorries.

Apparently, they’re all heading to a local farm just a bit further down the hill. The same farm in fact where the farmer was obliging enough to let my builders temporarily store all the oak timbers when I was having the garden done. The two brothers who farm the land there have diversified into potato distribution – they have a huge barn / storage building, where they receive potatoes from all over the locality, do some initial processing on them (to remove the soil / stones / sticks) and then bag them up to distribute further up the supply chain.

Mystery solved!

10 09 2014 icyjumbo Uncategorized Comments (2) Permalink

The Return of the Verminator

The mice in the loft have been a real nuisance this summer. They start their scrabbling about 11:30pm and keep going intermittently until about 4am – all directly above my bed. It’s the intermittent bit that’s really the problem – I can generally ignore a constant background noise when I’m trying to get to sleep, but I find myself lying there tense, waiting and listening for it to start up again. Grrrrr.

I called up Martin, the brother-in-law of my original pest controller, and he came around again to investigate. The problem is that he can only put bait down in the accessible parts of the loft, and due to the way this house has been extended over the years, there is no access to the space directly above my bedroom. So he has to put the bait down throughout the rest of the loft, and trust to the mice to sniff it out, find a way to get to it, and eat it. And of course that isn’t an instantaneous process.

Martin said that there was in fact still plenty of bait up in the loft. The mice seem only to have found some of it, and about half of the bait trays were completely empty, whilst others were still untouched. He’s topped up the empty ones, and added some “chewy blocks” of a different sort of bait which he can throw into the less accessible corners of the loft. Now it’s a case of playing a waiting game, and hoping that the mice find and take the bait so that I can get some sleep.

I certainly can’t fault the service I’m getting from Martin. If I call him out, he generally tries to get to me the next day – even at the weekend. And, given that I’m on an annual contract, it doesn’t cost me anything extra. I’m certainly getting my money’s worth this year!

07 09 2014 icyjumbo house Comments Off on The Return of the Verminator Permalink

Weston’s and Morgan

I was thinking back on my excursion around the Weston’s Cider Mill, and comparing it to my visit to the Morgan car factory. Both are local, family owned companies, and have been going for over a hundred years. In that time, they’ve both had to balance staying true to their roots with expanding and competing in the global market place. Morgan is now big in China, whilst Weston’s most recent export market is Australia.

They both have had to overcome significant issues in their expansion – at Morgan, the cars are famously hand-built, which limits their throughput. At Weston’s, they are determined that all the apples they use should come from the Three Counties of Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire. But you can’t just source local apples overnight to fuel expansion. About 45% of their apples come from their own orchards, but they also have worked with lots of local farmers to encourage them to plant more apple trees to secure future supply. I found it interesting that the newer orchards are planted with apple trees grown more as a bush so that the harvest can largely be mechanised – effectively a machine grabs the trunk of the tree and shakes it to make the apples fall off, then “hoovers them up” like a roadsweeper. The older orchards with “proper” old-style trees are less suited to mechanisation and spraying so, cannily, Weston’s have converted them to organic status to be turned into organic cider.

Surprisingly, despite the completely different nature of the two businesses, the atmosphere of the factory tours was quite similar. The guides were both full of pride in their company and its history, and the sites themselves comprised multiple different sheds each specialising in a different stage of the production process that had quite clearly evolved organically over the past one hundred years. There was even a similarity in the way that both companies made use of the local topology – Morgan use gravity to roll their cars down the slope from one shed to the next, and Weston’s make use of a slope to wash apples downhill into the first stage of the pressing process.

One other thing in common is that both tours ended in the obligatory gift shop – but there the similarities ended. I was definitely in the market for stocking up my car boot with a case of cider; I definitely was not in the market for a sports car! Weston’s is more family-friendly too – there was an outdoor play area, and they seemed quite happy to include children on the factory tours (but not in the tasting session afterwards!)

In both cases however I came away kicking myself that it had taken me so long to get around to visiting the factories. They were both very interesting indeed.

31 08 2014 icyjumbo Day out Comments Off on Weston’s and Morgan Permalink