If you think you like wine watch this brilliant video blog. It’s hosted by the hugely charismatic Gary Vaynerchuk. Vaynerchuk runs a wine store with his father in New Jersey called Wine library and clearly the man knows what he’s talking about. Winelibrary.tv is on a mission to take the stuffiness out of wine appreciation and cultivate a broad repertoire of wine knowledge in its viewers (sorry ‘Vayniacs’, as they are known). It’s fun, dynamic and informative. Who would have thought that watching a guy, on a static camera, trying and then describing wine for twenty minutes would be good entertainment? But it’s surprisingly compelling. There’s a brilliant episode where Gary takes you through how he developed his palette. This basically involves training yourself by gathering together all the flavors that commonly make up the flavour profiles of wines – including rocks, fruit, dirt, vegetable matter, you name it. I’d really like to try this some time. If you taste all the components individually and in succession, your brain builds up a clearer picture of what they are. How often is it you drink a nice wine and you just can’t quite put your finger on what the flavours are? Well this is how you do it apparently.
I really like Vaynerchuck’s boundless enthusiasm and his larger than life persona. Can you imagine a Brit doing the same thing, and referring to the show as ‘The thunder show’? At first glance he could come across a bit of a frat-boy, but you quickly realise he’s a very sophisticated guy. Be warned, this will make you want to consume a lot of wine. Basically, and this is more than a little sad, I wish I could do what he does everyday but I’ve neither the budget nor the expertise. Frustratingly also, when he does pick out a wine that is cheap but highly rated, I don’t seem to able to find a retailer in the UK that will stock it. This is particularly annoying when it’s a French Wine (Gary is a big fan of ‘old world’ wines by the way, is this an east coast thing?) Maybe the French have given up on the British market now, saturated as it is with New World stuff.
We’re not talking about the football here by the way. I can only hope that they appoint a dispassionate foreigner and one or two candidates spring to mind. Have we got enough time to completely rejuvenate English football in time for the next world cup? I doubt it somehow.
I can’t believe I’ve not been following this little fight from the start. Ronan Bennett’s recent article in G2 denouncing Martin Amis as a racist, has resulted in Hitchens coming to the defense of his friend in an article published in the Guardian today. I think Bennett is absolutely right in his questioning of Amis’s motives and his dubious choice of language at times. What is a ‘thought experiment’ anyway? Is it where you pretend to be a bit racist to test the responses of other people – and only the truly intellectual and enlightened liberal mind can partake of it? Sounds a bit dubious to put it mildly.
But Hitchens equally makes some good points and rather settles this I feel. I think Amis is lucky in this instance to have such an eloquent advocate as Hitchens. Hitchens and Amis would never tolerate the label ‘islamaphobe’. But I think when they express a strong distaste for ‘islamism’, that’s what they are. But this is different from being racist towards all Muslims isn’t it? Or is the distinction irrelevant?
This whole spat started as a dispute between Amis and fellow Manchester University Professor of English Terry Eagleton. Hitchens seems to have taken it as a compliment that Eagleton has expressed disappointment in Hitchens turning out not to be the new George Orwell, but rather the new Evelyn Waugh. Hasn’t he heard, right is the new left?
This blog will now have contributions from Joe Miller and Matt Venables. This way it’ll probably be updated more regularly and you’ll have three voices to, ahem, enjoy instead of just the one. It’ll be fun. You’ll be able to read about all our exploits living in a rodent invested hell hole in Hackney. This has come about after a sustained effort on my to get them to joint the party. Thematically it’ll probably remain the same. The truth is that there is no theme to this blog, it’s just easier that way. To see who is the author of a post, you’ll have to click on the comments section and scroll down to the bottom.
This picture is from the FIB festival this summer. Matt had hurt his arm and is sporting a rather fetching and coordinated bandage. Joe is just resting his eyes having consumed only a moderate amount of alcohol.
I recently edited together my footage from that week. It had taken many months before I could bring myself to properly review it all. I think this picture is quite emblematic of the holiday. Notice how just out of frame Tom is somehow still holding it together. After this we had to walk the three or four miles along the beech back to our apartment to watch some more wrestling on the TV.
Is anyone else a little cheesed off by the return to the screen of Lead Balloon? It’s not that this
Jack Dee vehicle is that bad (there are some laughs), it’s just that I know there’ll be loads of people watching it who haven’t seen Curb Your Enthusiasm, and I think it’s therefore a bit rich that in the round of publicity spots Dee has done for the show, I’ve never once heard him acknowledge its debt to the HBO show. It’s as though the BBC has a policy of ‘no comment’ in this respect.
For those who haven’t seen it, Jack Dee plays an affluent, grumpy, misanthropic comedian (Rick Spleen). The show focuses on his domestic life and the embarrassing social situations he engineers for himself through a curmudgeonly and conceited attitude towards others. His best friend is his manager (an American). His long suffering wife is attractive and has a more human touch with the subjects of Rick’s scorn. It’s filmed in a semi-documentary style with no laughter track. Sound familiar?
Maybe I’m taking this a bit personally, but why didn’t the BBC (for the brief time that they had it) give Curb a proper billing instead of burying it on BBC4? And why do we now have to endure this inferior remake of a classic?
I am a massive fan of The Wire. It’s completely out there on its own. I can’t think of anything else that really compares to it. Hollywood is dead but who cares when we’re living in televisual golden age? People often talk about ‘realism’ when discussing the Wire. Is it realistic? I have no idea. It certainly seems plausible enough. I do know that’s it’s excellent entertainment that treats the audience as though they were grown-ups with the ability to think for themselves. At this juncture, that alone is enough. So just briefly, here are some of the reasons why it’s great:
Character. Characters in The Wire are rounded. They surprise you and are allowed to develop as a season progresses. Even the supposedly ‘good police’ have their flaws. Gay and lesbian characters are realistically portrayed. The writing at times does not shy away from making the characters act in a vile or ethically dubious fashion. There are also loads of them too. I can’t help thinking that you could make whole spin-off shows just on the exploits of relatively minor characters here.
Pace. The Wire is not afraid to take its time. It’ll lead you down dead ends where the audience know that the police are pursuing the wrong line of inquiry (incidentally many of the police are stupid, lazy and despicable). Scenes are allowed to play out for as long as it takes and there is much more than just a sense of necessary information being conveyed. It can drift off into the whimsical or even the banal at times. There is no music except for what is heard on car stereos, in bars etc. and as a result we’re spared the little aural signifiers of drama used to manipulate our emotions and guide us through the complexity.
Acting. Performances are uniformly excellent. For a show with such an intricate and complex plot, the characters very rarely look like they’re just trying to remember their lines. In particular I’d single out Chris Bauer as Frank Sobotka in season two. As a Polish-American longshoreman’s union boss torn between loyalties to family, the union and the temptation to skim a little off the top, Bauer gives a brilliant performance with just about as much intensity as I’ve seen on screen anywhere in any format. When the rest of the TV land catches up with this show, performances like this will no longer go unacknowledged.
Moral ambiguity. The Baltimore of this show, right from the lowest gangster errand boy in the projects, to the movers and shakers at the highest echelons of power, consists not simply of bad guys and good guys. Rather it’s all shades of gray in web of human intrigue. This simple fact, may well be the shows greatest strength of all.
Writing. Okay maybe everything above comes under this heading to some extent, but when watching this show I frequently find myself marveling at the brilliance of the writing. A cop drama show with half of the ideas here, and half of the characters, would still be worth watching. Quite simply it spoils us with its depth and breadth.
Joe bought the new Jeffrey Lewis record the other week. It’s Jeffrey Lewis doing cover versions of twelve Crass songs. Crass were an English anarchist punk rock band that formed in 1977. Liking the album we decided to track down the original Crass versions of the songs. Crass were a riduculuos band. Their songs consist of leftist rants in a six-form poetry style. While other punk acts merely postured, Crass were the real deal: angry young men (and women) sticking it to the man, taking on the establishment. They were angry about absolutely everything in an endearingly juvenile way.
Jeffrey Lewis makes the tracks into something altogether more palatable and updates some of the lyrics for a contemporary audience. My favourite changes being on the lyrics to ‘I aint thick, it’s just a trick’:
Standards and values on the living room screen, Sarah Jessie Parker acting mean. She’s got it all that’s what they want you to think but if you read between the lines you’ll see the missing link. She’s just a puppet in their indoctrination plan – be link me girls and become a real man. Live to the full, always act flash. Don’t use your brains when you’re body makes a splash.
I think this album maybe a modern classic, or at the very least a highly recommended curiosity.
For the record, this is more or less what happened on Tuesday the 31st of July 2007. On the preceding Sunday, I had taken some snaps of what may or may not have been a Great White Shark swimming in the sea near Westcombe beach on the south coast of Devon. Let me tell you, we all had quite a scare. A day or two later I posted them on my Facebook profile. I had been joking around with friends about sending them to The Sun but had assumed that the whole shark theme the red-tops were running had now been succeeded by something else. Something less ridiculous, and something, frankly more newsworthy. Not being a huge follower of the tabloids I had little idea that the silly-season was now officially in full swing, the traditionally quiet summer months where it seems literally anything goes. (perhaps I had also underestimated how poor the ratings for Big Brother have been this summer)
Quite soon after posting the picture I began to get comments about the terrifying shark fin lurking in the background. This made me think again about sending it to a newspaper. I decided to have look at The Sun’s website and low and behold there it was: ‘Britain gripped by shark mania!’. I needed no further persuasion. I quickly cobbled together an email with a story that basically reflected events as they unfolded on the beach that fateful afternoon. Here is that email:
Hi,
Some of my pals were swimming in the sea off the coast of South Devon near Westcombe beach and the village of Kingston. It was Sunday afternoon. I was enjoying the British summer and getting some rays when all of a sudden I spotted what looked like a fin somewhere beyond my friends.
At this point I started shouting at Hannah (23) and Freya Miller (20), both on holiday from Oxford, to warn them to swim in immediately. Fortunately the girl’s cousin, Joe Miller (26) was on hand to dash into the water and help (pictured).
I think I managed to capture the moment when all three of them actually saw the fin behind them (see the second picture). The girls were a bit shaken but otherwise unharmed. They may think twice about swimming in Westcountry waters again.
Regards,
Chris Lowe.
If you’d like to purchase the pictures for publication call me on (01752 880748) anytime
The rest is history. I’m sure I will write further about this incident (in particular my dealings with the UK’s biggest selling tabloid newspaper), but right now I’m a little tired of sharks and anything shark related. Plus tomorrow I’ve got to move my whole life up to London and I’ve barely started packing.
This is one of those stories that’s so exasperating I can hardly bring myself to follow it. BBC 1 controller Peter Fincham may have to resign because the editing of a trailer shown at a program launch for a documentary has offended the queen. I’ll say it again: BBC 1 controller Peter Fincham may have to resign because the editing of a trailer shown at a program launch for a documentary has offended the queen.
Hang on a minute, what century is this? Alright maybe I’m simplifying things a bit here, but if you break this situation down there is no substance beyond this simple point of fact to this whole brouhaha. Of course it’s pressure from the media itself in their criticism of Fincham and his handling of the affair that may ultimately be his undoing. But even so. Can’t we all just grow up?
If I were him I’d tell them all to fuck off, the queen especially.
On television last night I watched Beethoven’s 9th symphony being performed by the BBC symphony orchestra and chorus at the Royal Albert Hall. It was the first night of the annual proms. It’s a classical favorite that everyone knows because it’s used to great effect in the first Die hard Movie, as well as numerous other films. I’ve been listening to quite a lot of Beethoven this summer and so I enjoyed having the visuals as well. It wasn’t long however before a few observations led to a rather negative train of though I’m afraid. I was struck by how old all the singers were. I would expect that Beethoven had in mind strapping young aryan men and women to perform this piece as let’s face it, the voice weakens with age. A large portion of the chorus were well beyond the age for being soloists and I couldn’t help but imagine what it would sound like if all the singers were in the prime of their life: surely louder, clearer, better. Here young singers were the exception and some of them looked to be well into their 60s. This doesn’t bode well for the future. The decline of Church of England community singing may have something to do with it (though it’s worth noting that evangelical churches are thriving in some inner city areas).
This all points to a wider reality: that there’s going to be increasingly fewer recordings of classical music made in the future. What does this say for the state of our culture? That we no longer feel the need to document newer performances of works in the cannon reflects both the shrinking market and the abundance of recordings already available. But it also reflects a wider malaise. The market is saturated, but there’s also little new music coming through that large audiences want to buy. In the first half of the twentieth century there were an abundance of popular composers that sustained the industry. They’ve all dried up now. The medium has been exhausted. And it’s not just music. Just look at the state of Hollywood and tell me there isn’t a crisis. Unfortunately we are living through the fag-end of Western civilisation. Our ‘culture’ such as it is, has become so complex it’s become unstable (it’s impossible not to think of black-hole analogies here). Something new will come through it’s just at the moment nobody has any ideas what forms they will take (I suspect it’s going to have something to do with new technologies). But we may all be dead by the time it happens.
I’m conscious that I may be laying myself open to the rejoinder that, well, “history is littered with people who thought that their particular age was crappy and we’re no different. Stop complaining, what we have now is a culture for the many instead of just the privelaged few. You’re just idealising imagined former glories.”
Perhaps I am. But for many of our ancestors, surely art and music actually meant something, and an even more fortunate few felt themselves to be heroic players in the unfolding human drama that had direction and purpose. Postmodernity has robbed us of this comforting illusion(?) Instead we have Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and torture porn. The end is nigh.
Perhaps a bit of a boring subject to post about, but the weather this summer has been completely beyond the pale. It’s just never really started. Here in Britain we expect our summers to be somewhat aloof at times, but this year it seems more akin to how I imagine nuclear winter would be. It’s really beginning to get me down. The depression that this entails may stem from a sense of time itself having slowed down. Things around here move slowly enough as it is without having the constant deferment of summer as well. I went for a walk yesterday evening through the fields and through the dense mist that has descended over the South-Hams (I exaggerate only a little), and imagined all the things that might be happening if this were anything like a normal summer ie. trips to the beach, BBQs etc. This year I’ve eaten only a small number of meals outdoors. If I believed in God I would surmise that he/ she was pretty pissed off with us all right now, but I’m sure the real reason for the gloom is something much more prosaic. And worrying.
At least next week I’m heading to Spain where sun is always guaranteed. I keep looking at the BBC weather display for Valencia and the lovely orange sun symbols and I try to remember what a sunny day actually feels like. Roll on next week…