A Lark Ascending

Winter be upon us.

Brian Pern: A Life in Rock Missed this when it first went out. Catching up with Series 1 on a TV rebroadcast and Series 2 on the iPlayer. Clearly influenced by Spinal Tap, a spoof on an imaginary rock musician based on Peter Gabriel, his ludicrous vanities and tortured relationship with his former public school bandmates from Thotch. Lots of famous people in the cameos from Ann Nightingale and Rick Wakeman to Roger Moore. Apparently Gabriel himself appears at some point. Not A List comedy but the 30 minute programmes fit nicely into those times when you are waiting for the tea to cook. Third series in January so it clearly resonates with a part of the British TV watching public (probably all bald).

Excellent. A young man unwittingly caught on the wrong side of a revolution, forced into exile and with the threat of execution over his head. The overseas parts didn't work so well but each return to Sligo was rich in the sense of homesickness and the love of place. Written in that sing-song style you get in Irish speech - reminiscent of Joyce and Flann O'Brien.

Borders went under everywhere. They had one in Leeds and another in a retail park in Leicester just off the M1. I remember them as treasure troves when first opened but they seemed to replace stock rarely so after a period of time they were quite random. Good for books beyond Britain and American magazines (I bought Downbeat and Jazz Times for a few years). There was a borders on Charing Cross Road as well, just up from Foyles on the other side of the road. Might be where there is huge hole in the ground at present as they redo Tottenham, Court Road Tube Station and the surrounding area.

Foyles was still eccentric right up to its move in the last year or so (although it abandoned the 'take book to counter/get a chit/take chit to another counter and pay/get a chit to be checked against your passport at a local police station/return with police authorisation/get a chit and go back to the original desk (if you can remember where it was and if you are lucky enough for it to be still there)/collect book and decide you don't want it any more' approach a long while back [Kafka-esque describes the procedure perfectly]). I remember books piled everywhere. It's much more contemporary now, not much different to Waterstones. Still well stocked - the history section is still filled with things you wouldn't see in most book shops.

Large waves crash around Roker, Sunderland on 21 November. Photo by John Smith Love the way the spray is caught there http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/34901875

Topette at the Yellow Arch Studios in a rundown industrial part of Sheffield (expected the Peaky Blinders to walk in at any moment). Andy Cutting - Diatonic Button Accordion; Julien Cartonnet - Bagpipes and Banjo; James Delarre - Violin; Tania Buisse - Bodhran; Barnaby Stradling - Acoustic Bass Guitar Mainly French traditional dance music but with a smattering of Sweden, North Africa, Macedonia and one token English tune. Anti-Farrage music at its best. The three Brits play in the cream of UK folk bands (and individually); the two French players from Burgundy are unknowns to me. Cartonnet was a wizard on the bagpipes - his solo bourrees were a high point. Great dancing from the people of Sheffield (well some of the people of Sheffield). Average age of audience dropped 30 years from concerts I usually go to.

Przemyśl, Poland: A silvery frost covers trees in a park http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2015/nov/25/photo-highlights-of-the-day-a-trump-lookalike-and-snow-in-windsor

I have the dimmest of memories of going to a specialist record shop on New Oxford Street...but I could well have dreamed that up from reading so much about places there (in folk as well as jazz publications). To be honest I rarely ventured into New Oxford Street. I used to love visiting record shops in different cities - they all tended to reflect the individual interests of the owners or the local preferences (until the chains took over with their central stocking systems). You could come across very different things in the racks of different record shops. Today on the rare occasions I go into a record/CD shop I get bored quickly. I popped into Rays and Fopp in London last week and lasted 5 minutes in each. Nothing like the range I'm now used to on the net and more expensive.

Thanks, Bill. Reading the site on Rays it appears Ray started in Collets. All very confusing. There's a Cold War thriller to be written about dead record drops in these places.

Ah! That one didn't make much of an impression on me. I will have to revisit in the light of the new piece.

Am I right in remembering Dobell's in the mid 70s as being on Charing Cross Road near Cambridge Circus (where Shaftesbury Avenue meets it). I can't recall if it was above or below the circus. My memory tells me that was the one in BBS's photo above. No wonder you get so many variations in historical events, even before you take the historians interpretations into account. I can't even remember a few record shops in an age when more information is available than any time in history. And I wasn't being shot at when I leafed through the racks. (Completely off topic but that site revealed to me the name of the record shop I bought most of my early records from along with my first record player - Newquay Electrical & Record Centre on East Street, Newquay, Cornwall (what a name, nowadays it would be called something like "Yo!"). Sadly no photo - we wouldn't have even have thought of taking a photo of a shop then). There's a bit about Mole here: http://www.london-rip.com/places/mole-jazz

London Spy continues to impress. Though if anything it has got slower in pace (not a complaint!). Not comfortable TV. A lot of needles being poked into veins (or maybe arteries). BBC's adaptation of John Lanchester's 'Capital' started last night. A couple of years since I read it so I've forgotten all but the outline. Very much enjoyed it. Plays to all my prejudices. One I'd like to see - will await the arrival in DVD rental land. I have the book which I've not yet read. Might read that first.

I was getting utterly muddled by Collets. It seems as if it had its own record shop and when that closed the folk part went into the main book shop just north of Foyles. I can't for the life of me remember going into a discrete Collets record shop - but I must have done. http://www.britishrecordshoparchive.org/collets.html

I went into Dobell's a few times when it was on Charing Cross Road. Didn't it get absorbed into Colletts for a time - the left-wing bookshop where you could buy the complete works of Marx and Lenin? I seem to recall going downstairs to a music section. Visited Ray's many times and still pop into the bit it occupies in Foyles though I rarely buy anything. Both had very good folk/blues/world music sections too. Mole was my main London visit (apart from the big stores - Virgin, HMV, Tower which had great stocks up to just after 2000). Most of the recordings we take for granted now, orderable or downloadable at a keystroke, were not in print in the UK and you had to head for these shops. There was virtually nothing by Miles between KofB and Silent Way available...I started picking some of those up on my infrequent London trips from the late 70s onwards.

Just finished a first run through. Loved it. Such strong soloing throughout. Is this the first jazz record to mention David Beckham? Or Facebook?

Looks great. I keep meaning to do a Prague/Budapest/Vienna tour. I like the buskers!

Lovely. Are they your own? I've not been to Hungary but love the German/Austrian part of that area.

Based on recommendations in this thread. Great film and very evocative of that era. I never lived in that social strata, but the kids I taught were very much from that world. Thomas Turgoose was great as the young lad. I loved the way it focussed on the camaraderie and loyalty within the group as well as the more menacing aspects. More sentimental than I expected but a compelling 90 minutes. Will follow with the 3 TV series.

Somehow I'm reminded of one of the interpretations of the fall of the Roman Empire - a population that had lost all sense of purpose and got distracted into the trivialities of Bread and Circuses: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2015/nov/22/feline-groovy-one-mans-kickstarter-quest-to-make-the-purrfect-music-for-cats I've nothing against cats (except the ones who **** in my garden) and understand the comfort, reassurance and feeling for nature they bring to their owners. But! It's got me thinking about setting music on a loop when I'm out to help the spiders. After that I'll work on ways to entertain the frogs, wood lice etc in the garden....

I watch TV live if it's something I really want to watch; but I love having the ability to record for later or catch-up. Solves the problem of being out or just not in the mood (or the dilemma when two things you want to watch are on simultaneously). I think there is still a pretty strong tradition of watching live in the UK - we've only had multiple channel possibilities relatively recently (25 years?). When I was at work yapping about what had been aired the previous night was still standard chatter in staff rooms. I expect in the States you've had multiple possibilities (as with radio) for much longer.

Not in the Barbican but in the Savoy Cinema in Worksop (not live either, a re-broadcast of a performance that went out a little while back). First time I've tried one of these theatre/ballet/opera in cinema experiences. I will do more. Did not know Hamlet apart from a distant memory of watching a TV version when I was about 17. Mugged up on the plot in one of the Duffer's Guides to Shakespeare I've got and then settled in for the 3 1/2 hours. I've read all sorts of reviews about this but I was completely absorbed. Cumberbatch seems to be something of a front rank celebrity at present though I only recall seeing him in the TV adaptation of "Parade's End" (which was excellent). I thought he was brilliant here. Why, it even had Nat King Cole, Sidney Bechet and Frank Sinatra in it! Have booked for 'The Winter's Tale' next month in the same situation. Another one I don't know.

I've only watched the first two couples of the Dahl so far. Yes, Spiral is special.

The Bridge - Season 3 (the proper one) No Martin, though constantly alluded to in prison. Thoroughly involving as ever but quite hard to follow - a lot of things going on that I couldn't yet piece together.

If you can get to The Barnfield, make the effort. The concert at the end of July was a joy. I read somewhere that the Orchestra might venture beyond the West Country next year. Very odd, that in a world where you can get all sorts of gongs and places in the House of Lords for funding the Tory party to ensure the 1% keep everything and get more, that someone of Mike Westbrook's achievement goes virtually unrecognised beyond those who have stumbled on his world...not that I'd imagine he'd want any of the official ones!