An email arrives overnight from Japan. It's my old friend Chris Dark, whom I last saw at a Bob concert in Hammersmith too long ago. He writes:

You’ve probably seen this, given the Bob ‘otaku’* that you are, and I tried posting this to your blog but got defeated by tech along the way. Anyway, it’s a magnificent 35 minute speech at the MusiCares benefit held just before the Grammys. You may want to share with your followers. It reads like a trailer for the next volume of ‘Chronicles’, and, I think,  remarkable for its openness.

It's a good idea, because the speech is extraordinary even by Bob's standards; by turns generous and bitter, general and particular, acute and oblique. 

It deserves your attention.

* in Japan, a young person who is obsessed with computers or particular aspects of popular culture to the detriment of their social skills.

In the every smith household, we are counting down the days to the wedding of the year. In the Red Sox Nation, we are counting down the days to pitchers and catchers. And throughout the UK, we are counting down the days to the general election.

It was to the latter that I turned my attention last Friday, when I found myself at the Irish Club in Leamington to hear Tom Watson MP give a rallying cry to Labour activists in the constituency. I confess I felt something of a fraud, because by no stretch could I be described or even describe myself, as an ‘activist’. Lately, especially lately, my contributions to the political debate have been merely despairing rants about the decline of real democracy on a national and particularly local level, and the failure of our elected representatives to address the issues which actually concern us.

But that was before I met Tom Watson.

Tom is the MP who famously and forensically destroyed the Murdochs, famously observing when James Murdoch once again claimed to have no knowledge of wrong-doing, that he (Murdoch) was “the first mafia boss in history who didn't know he was running a criminal enterprise”.

Arriving early, I was able to meet him personally and discuss politics and football and the state of the nation with him individually for a few moments. And my conclusion is that if every voter were able to have this kind of one-to-one conversation with the man, Labour would win by a landslide.

This was confirmed when he spoke formally to an audience which had grown to about a hundred people. He told us that “so many public institutions were failing on a huge scale”, and that the fragmentation and privatisation of the NHS was only one example of the way in which the government was systematically destroying the country.

Nevertheless, he was “optimistic about the 7th May”, because he believed in the empowering state, citing not only the NHS (“the jewel in the crown”) but also Labour achievements such as the Open University and the CEGB.

Of course, he was speaking primarily (though not exclusively) to Labour supporters, and the questioning was largely concerned with potential “rebuttals” of arguments from Greens and Tories. As for the leadership, he told us he had “a huge belief in Miliband” which surprised me because he went so much further than a conventional expression of loyalty, but which was reinforced when, the following day, I was discussing the talk with a director of a major PLC who had worked with Miliband during the last government. He also expressed his admiration for the man.

I am still not sure. Although I agree that the Tories want to turn the election into “a referendum on the last government”, although I accept that Ed has been the target of an unpleasant press campaign to discredit him, I have several ideological differences with him and the current Labour leadership.

But they are insignificant compared with my major ideological differences with the Cameron-Clegg coalition, the Ant and Dec of party politics.

Which is why I have now joined the Labour Party – yes, again – and why I intend to become an ‘activist’ in the next 90-odd days.

As we say in St Quentin la Poterie, “Soyons combatif! Soyons optimiste!”

Today from the everysmith vault: For the second day running, the 35 minutes of Shadows in the Night. Bizarrely beautiful.

In the village of St Quentin la Poterie, la journée de la truffe was heralded by a fly-past of balloons, floating dangerously low over our ancient streets. The sound of their burners brought us out into our courtyards and prompted us to take ourselves early to market, there to purchase a modest amount of the famous tuber melanosporum for the delectation of diners at Wilde’s.

December is always a busy month for restaurateurs – hence the absence of a new blog for some weeks, sorry – and it was both pleasure and business to take a week out for the truffle fête in the Gard.

The truffle is serious business as well as gastronomic pleasure in this part of the world. An entire month is devoted to it, with epiphanies, demonstrations, manifestations and dégustations throughout January. But the highlight is the truffle market in Uzès.

The rich, earthy aroma of the truffle pervades all of the Place aux Herbes. In one corner, pigs and hounds are demonstrating their prowess at sniffing out the truffle. In another, the marchands have set out their stall – large companies next to ageing couples who have been fortunate enough to find a couple of these highly prized mushrooms on their land. Others were cashing in: vignerons were boasting of the perfect matching of truffles with their red wine; a stall was selling petits pates Nimois, a sort of mini pork pie made from pork, veal, foie gras and truffles and without doubt one of the most delicious breakfasts I have ever eaten.

As we eat our pies, we stroll through the market, sniffing at the more tempting examples. Finally, we make our choice from a charming couple from Montaren. She places the selected truffles on the scales, and performs some complicated mathematics on a scrap of paper.

“€85.”

“C’est trop chère” say I. “€60.”

“€75” she says.

“€70” I counter.

“Bon.” She extends her hand. I shake it and pass over the money, explaining that these are for my restaurant and so I would like a reçu. She shakes her head, hands me the truffles in a paper bag bearing the logo of a local shop and turns her attention to other trufflers.

In my best Gallic fashion, I shrug. I accept that there will be no receipt, and trust that HMRC back in the UK will understand. We have no time left for debate. We are due to meet Tom and Jim Cantwell at La Terr’In, the restaurant in St Quentin presided over by Chef Axel Bachelard. Like the other restaurants in the Uzège, he is preparing a special menu for the day and each of the seven courses will feature the tuber melanosporum.

What a feast! Foie gras and truffles, egg and truffles, goat cheese and truffles, Bresse chicken stuffed with truffles, truffle risotto, truffle and Armagnac chocolate.

I confess that not one of us was able to complete the the full menu. We were pretty much defeated half-way through. But Axel, charmingly, priced each individual course for us, so that we were able to pay not €60 each for the magnificent seven, but a modest €45 for five.

But even without finishing, we had experienced enough of this mysterious tuber to appreciate why it is so celebrated in kitchens and dining rooms throughout the world. 

As Alexander Dumas, said: "The most learned men have been questioned as to the nature of this tuber, and after two thousand years of argument and discussion their answer is the same as it was on the first day: we do not know. The truffles themselves have been interrogated, and have answered simply: eat us and praise the Lord."

He knew what he was talking about.


Today from the everysmith vaults: The anniversaries of Subterranean Homesick Blues and Blood on the Tracks have prompted me to revisit these extraordinary recordings - not that I needed much encouragement, and I still prefer the New York version of BOTT. Live, I was in the audience at Wilde's last Sunday for definitely, positively, absolutely the final Swaps gig before the Beth hiatus. Quite brilliant.

Despite my occasional rants against the governance of Leamington Spa, there are many reasons to be cheerful about living in this town. And I was part of one of them on Friday evening.

It is undoubtedly true that the avowed intention of Warwick District Council to turn our town into a second division version of Solihull is ruining the spirit of independence and entrepreneurship which made Leamington so attractive to chains of retailers, restaurants, and supermarkets in the first place. Tories who live in Warwick and Kenilworth seem determined to inflict sleaziness in the Old Town and the likes of Nando's in Livery Street. I don't blame Shades for accepting the offer of six out-of-town Tories to allow their appalling premises to operate under an official sexual entertainment licence. And nor can I blame the chain restaurants for taking advantage of 12 months free of business rates, paid for, of course, by the business rates of the small independent operations whose businesses they are trying to destroy.

I blame the council because I and thousands of others do not want Leamington turned into Solihull. If we want Solihull, we can go to Solihull. But we don't.

We don't because Solihull is pretty much bereft of soul or character. We don't because Solihull is now a glorified shopping mall, a centre of conspicuous consumption and commercialism. We don't because Solihull doesn't have a season of international string quartet concerts held in a beautiful listed building which opened before the battle of Waterloo.

This is where I was happily ensconced on Friday evening, listening to the third gig of Leamington Music’s ninth season. And what a treat it was. The Zemlinsky Quartet (or, as we should perhaps refer to them following the example of the Lindsays, the Zemlinskies) were playing in the Pump Rooms for the first time, and it was a privilege to hear this extraordinary Czech quartet play a programme of Beethoven, Dvorak and – the highlight for me – the third quartet by Alexander von Zemlinksy, after whom the quartet is named and a composer, I confess, of whom I had not previously heard.

It is to the enormous credit of Richard and Veronica Phillips, who work tirelessly and I suspect without huge reward for Leamington Music, that they continue to attract bands of the calibre of the Zemlinsky, who won 1st Grand Prize at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition in 2010 and – no surprise to those of us who were present on Friday - the Audience Prize at the London competition. Although they play throughout Europe, their visits to these shores are rare, and Leamington should be proud and grateful that we hosted one of these infrequent performances, the organisation of which was as precise and seamless as the playing.

It is a side of Leamington which is not sufficiently recognised but which is truer to the spirit of the town than the new malls and the chains which have taken over the centre of the town.

It is a side of Leamington which is not mercenary but which appeals to a richer, creative and artistic milieu.

It is a side of Leamington which is not Solihull.

Today from the everysmith vaults: With pleasure and delight, I am working my way through the other Zemlinsky quartets.

Despite the fact that only 349 people in the constituency of Rochester and Strood could bring themselves to vote Liberal Democrat (that many, huh?), nothing has changed.

The same MP is still in place, having changed his rosette but not his appalling opinions. And he joins his egregious colleague Carswell from Clacton to create what is now hailed as the ‘new face of British politics’.

It is not, of course, the new face. It is the old face. And it is significant that Farage and his party of bigots believe that their best hope of further representation is to recycle a load of old Tories.

Yep, according to Farage, there are more defections on the way, and the potential candidates are also completely unknown to anyone outside their families. If others depart the Tories, it might provoke a wry smile amongst those who oppose Cameron from the left, but is actually very scary.

Because what we are seeing is the re-emergence, red (or probably bright blue) in tooth and claw, of the real Conservative party, the one that ‘Dave’ has been trying to hide for the last half-decade, but which has been evident almost every time any of them, especially Osborne, utters a word.

Look at these two. Had you ever heard of them before they embarked on their UKIP journey? In a party of intellectual mediocrities, where the place of education mattered more than educational achievement, they had failed to gain any office of any kind. Instead, they mumbled and grumbled their right-wing prejudices, voting yes to Tory cuts and privately slagging off anything European or working class.

But now they are claiming to be ‘the party of the people’.

The party of the people!

This is why, presumably, we heard nothing from them when Osborne and his rich cabinet cronies were overtly moving the tax burden from the very rich to the very poor; and why we heard not a squeak at the withdrawal of funds from the People’s History Museum and the Working Class Movement Library. No argument from Carswell and Reckless here. The ‘party of the people’ didn’t give a damn. In fact, they approved it all.

They are not the party of the people. They are the party of a very small percentage of the people. They are, in fact, Tories who have had enough of pretending not to be Tory. They have come out in public with all the prejudices that the Tories eschewed at the last election, but which are absolutely fundamental to their lives and their form of government.

the fact is, there is no party of the people in British politics any more. Certainly not Labour in its current manifestation. Certainly not the soon-to-be-forgotten LibDems.

So where the hell do I go? Right now, I have no idea. None of the above has earned my vote. 

But I will be reading the Green manifesto with great attention.

Today from the everysmith vaults: Was dismissive of the early release of tracks from Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes, but have actually quite enjoyed listening to the album in its entirety. Rhiannon Giddens is a revelation and Mumford, James and Costello have worked well. Looking forward to the documentary if and when it ever gets showed over here.

It ain’t pretty. But it’s beautiful.

The Basement Tapes Complete is by turns silly and funny, poignant and profound, rough round the edges and sharp at its centre. It is spare and stripped, and it is complex and complicated. It is the stuff of dreams and the makings of myth.

Of course, there is little here that we did not have before. Sitting with me is Great White Wonder and  Troubled Troubador on vinyl, the too- polished 1975 double album on vinyl and CD, plus the 5CD The Genuine Basement Tapes which has 103 of the 138 (actually 140 – there are two hidden ones at the end of Disc 6) tracks featured on this latest official release, including the seminal I’m Not There, which prompted Kazuo Ishiguro to suggest that it should have been included in Lost, Stolen or Shredded, Rick Gekoski’s fascinating account of missing works of art.

Well, it is no longer missing. (Not that it ever was in this household!) And nor is this authentic record of Bob making music with four Canadians in the basement of Big Pink.

What strikes me, listening to them all again (and again and again) is how out of time they are. The year before we had marvelled at Bob’s electric music and the thrill of those 1966 shows still resound in my mind.

But in 1967? What were we listening to in 1967?

Despite – or perhaps because of – the banning of pirate radio, we were smoking to the Velvet Underground and Nico, rocking and rolling to the Stones, analysing Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. But mostly, we were trippin’ out to the Dead and the Airplane. This was the psychedelic era: the Dead had already written Dark Star; the Airplane had released Surrealistic Pillow and After Bathing at Baxter’s; Hendrix was asking Are You Experienced?; the Electric Prunes went Underground; Syd and Pink Floyd debuted with The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

So where was Bob while all this was going on? He was singing I’m Not There. Instead, he was holed up in Saugerties and bringing it all back home for those privileged to hear the original acetates. With the Band, he was moving effortlessly and spontaneously between genres, drawing on almost everything except psychedelia.

On these six CDs, you will hear folk, blues, nursery rhymes, Americana, surrealist improvisations. But nothing trippy, nothing spacy, nothing that reflected the zeitgeist. Or what we thought was the zeitgeist at the time.

As so often, Bob was right and he went on to demonstrate it in concrete form with John Wesley Harding later that year.

In Spring 1967 he re-invented music. We just didn’t know it. Listen to it all. Listen especially to Bourbon Street. “Ah! Play it pretty now, boys” he exhorts the Band. And Rick Danko responds with a melancholy trombone that would make Kid Ory cry.

Looking back (which he told us not to), I wish we had been aware of these songs and these recordings at the time. 

They just might have changed my life.

The great and the good of the shire assembled in the Town Hall last week for the Mayor’s and Mayoress’s Civic Dinner; there to eat, drink, raise money for charity and listen to an after-dinner speech by Matthew Taylor. Jill and I were also present.

It was a glittering occasion. Mayoral bling was plentiful. Dinner jackets, lounge suits and “long evening and short cocktail dresses” were the order of the day. The food was fine; the red wine excellent. The company and generosity thereof outstanding.

But our fellow guests will forgive me for observing that the most interesting twenty minutes was the witty declamation of Matthew Taylor, the Chief Executive of the  RSA, the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. Back in 1992, he stood as parliamentary candidate for the Leamington and Warwick constituency, so his audience at the Town Hall consisted of many who had actively campaigned against him as well as his agent at that time and several who voted for him: “vote Labour with no illusions” was our rationale at the time. He also worked as Chief Advisor on Strategy to Tony Blair, a role which probably united the entire room in opposition to this aspect of his career, given that Blair’s strategy was to stay in power long enough to feather his nest for decades to come.

Matthew Taylor is, of course, the son of Laurie Taylor, the ubiquitous sociologist and broadcaster, a man whom I have met twice. The first time was at a Marxist seminar at the University of York sometime in the late ‘60s; the second was at a corporate convention – NCR I think – at which he was the keynote speaker and I had written every other presentation. I observed to him on the latter occasion that we had both travelled a long road in a short space of time, and he had the grace to smile ruefully. As did I.

Such a journey is common. Amongst soixante-huitards, it is the road well-travelled. Laurie Taylor is by no means the only one I have met along the way.

But as I encountered more and more councillors at the Town Hall,  many of whom had been in and out of their seats according to electoral responses to policies beyond their control, I felt just a tad humbled.

They have not sat at home bemoaning the state of the town, the country and the world. They have tested their opinions in the public domain and worked for what they believe. And for every councillor who was involved in the granting of the licence for a sexual entertainment club or for the closing of LAMP, there are many who have contributed positively to the town and who have, like the Mayor and Mayoress John and Jane Knight, raised awareness and funds for charities such as One World Link, Leamington Children’s Centres and Shopmobility. (£3700 was the total for the Civic Dinner.)

Maybe we – I mean I - should learn from their example.

Today from the everysmith vaults: 2014 is one of those rare years in which I have not seen Bob Dylan live and in concert, so I have been listening to some of the recent shows (notably those in Australia earlier in the year).  He has found his voice and his enthusiasm. Again. A remarkable late flowering. And the Complete Basement Tapes is only a couple of weeks away …

This year, the last game of the regular season really did mark the end of the summer. I watched it in a hotel bar in Beaune, Burgundy, with a very tolerable Haut Côtes de Nuit but without much enthusiasm, at our half-way point between St Quentin and Leamington Spa.

When the schedule was announced, there was - at least in this household - a frisson of expectation: the Sox were to finish the season with a series at Fenway against the Evil Empire, during which Derek Jeter would make his final appearance. It could have been something very special. But, in the event, we knew three months ago that the Sox had nothing to play for and a couple of weeks prior that the Yankees were also out of contention even for the second Wild Card.

2014 is the first season for years that neither the Sox nor the Yankees had an interest in the playoffs. And the Sox had the worst record of any World Series Champions since the Marlins in 2004. But they had been out scored by the Yankees in '03 and Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell were by then in a Sox uniform.

So this year has been frankly appalling, although it never felt that bad. Day to day, I don’t think many of us thought for a moment that we were watching anything as poor as the Valentine year, even though statistically they are virtually the same. In fact, it was the desire to win more games than in 2012 that kept many of us rooting for the Sox right to the end. And, to be fair, this was a likeable bunch of guys. Even as the gods of baseball punished us for the hubris of 2013, they kept playing and - mostly - smiling.

Especially the kids.

It's been a real pleasure to see so many make the journey from Pawtucket and show us that they can do it in the majors. I think that in Christian Vazquez we have a catcher who can read a game, throw and hit. In Mookie Betts (MLB), we have a tremendous prospect at second or in the outfield. In JBJ, we have a defensive centre fielder as good as Jacoby and I am convinced that he will learn to hit. Bogey has not performed as well as I expected at short, but watching the Yankees series made me realise that we are not missing Drew. You've only got to see what happened to the As without Cespedes (and with Lester) to appreciate his importance to a team, and Castillo appears to have the talent and the class to make a major contribution next year.

The pitching situation is more complex. I still hope to see Jon back, but heard this morning that he has put his Massachussetts home on the market. The Andrew Miller trade was against my advice, and although I have always had respect for Workman, he didn't seem to make progress this year. Tazawa worries me each time he comes to the mound and I fear that Koji will need careful nurturing if he is to play a role next year. But I do like the look of Joe Kelly and Anthony Ranaudo; less keen on de la Rosa. We’ll see. And we will see also if Matt Barnes is ready early in May or June.

So. From worst to first and from first to worst. Is our self destruction as unexpected as the triumph of the Os this year?

For me, it is. At the beginning of 2013, I was almost alone in predicting a winning Sox. This year, I got it totally wrong. In fact, you needed to reverse my ALE predictions to get close to what actually happened. It has been the story of Os. And, if only for my lovely and much missed friend Michelle, I am pleased for the people of Baltimore and I hope they go far enough this October to lose to the Giants in the World Series.

Of course, other things have happened this summer. We have had a sensational time in France: probably the best ever for Jill and pretty good for me, even if I was to-ing and fro-ing between the two countries. We have had a great time with old and new friends, enjoying the ball games even when we were losing.

That's important. In a summer in which I reached the pensionable age of 65, I know that there is more to life than winning.

The Sox had not won a World Series for eight decades when they gained my allegiance. That they have subsequently been World Series champions three times is wondrous. Generations of Sox fans did not see their team win. I have three World Series rings in my memory bank. But that is not why I watch so many games in the early hours of the morning, why I fly across to Boston to see them at Fenway.

I support the Sox because they are central to a community, because they are vulnerable, because thousands of us schlep to Fenway night after night to see the Town Nine play ball with passion and commitment and skill and joy.

Summer is over. I hope the Giants do it again, not least for Bob Bradley. And then, after four months of a baseball desert, it will be summer again. Fenway and France beckon.

Today from the everysmith vaults: Dirty Water by The Standells, from the Nuggets anthology. Original artefacts from the psychedelic era and the soundtrack to a win at Fenway.  

Fifteen years ago, on a cold, crisp, clear day in February, we drove into Uzès for the first time and wandered through the narrow streets, past the Duché, in search of lunch. By chance we discovered an authentic bar à vins called Au Suisse d’Alger. The patron was Jean-Louis Bouvard, the eponymous Suisse d’Alger, and he made this English couple very welcome, happily discussing the couple of dozen wines available by the glass and, when it became clear that we were struggling to make a decision, decided for us. We each received a glass of Clos du Caillou. It was gorgeous.

“Where can we buy this?” we asked.

He pointed across the rue de la République to a small shop, La Cave du Suisse d’Alger. “Ma cave” he said.

He took us across the street and introduced us to his wife, Andrée, who was presiding over a wonderfully eclectic collection of wines and spirits. The frontage of the shop was narrow, but the depth was substantial. And so was the stock. There were local and Languedoc wines, of course, but they were from the then fledgling independent producers rather than the co-ops. What was unusual then - and is still today – was the plethora of wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy, from the Loire and Alsace, even from outside France! Not to mention several long-aged Cognacs and one of the largest collections of single malts I have seen outside Scotland.

What particularly impressed us was the enthusiasm with which the Bouvards discussed their wines and their selections, each punctuated by wonderfully told stories of the vignerons responsible for the wine. It was as if we were being shown round a private cellar by an amateur de vin rather than being sold to and it was, in no small measure, the reason why we decided that this part of the world would be the location for our second home.

Since then, La Cave du Suisse d’Alger has been our destination whenever we want a special bottle or two, an everyday bag-in-box, a new corkscrew or just a conversation about wine. The majority of our own cellar has been sourced from here or bought on a recommendation from here.

Jean-Louis and Andrée are retired now, but still make an appearance on jours feriés. Their Cave du Suisse d’Alger is under the aegis of Colette Arnaud who maintains the tradition of independent thinking about wine which Jean-Louis established a generation or more ago, talking with similar passion and erudition, and filling the shop with wines that she loves and that we, therefore, must taste.

There are now other caves and cavistes in Uzès and maybe half-a-dozen cafés which call themselves bars à vin. But ‘the Suisse’ was the first and – for us – still the best. We owe them a great deal. Santé.

Today from the everysmith vaults: Phil Lesh and the Terrapin Family Band have been on the road, including a couple of sets in London. And that's what I'm listening to right now. Enjoying especially vocalist Emily Sunderland. Better than Donna?

The talk in the village is of Scottish independence. Well, not all of it to be honest, but a lot of it; because in the village live two Scottish friends for whom the referendum is the culmination of a lifetime of hope. They can’t vote, of course, being resident in France; but this week they will be leaving their business and their home for a few days so they can be there in Edinburgh as the results come in.

They are not alone in this. Rupert Murdoch has also come to town on the basis that his grandfather was a Presbyterian minister. And I would too, if I were Scottish. But the complex DNA of my family may have some Danish, some Jewish and some Irish, but as far as I know there is no Scottish blood. (Although I do remember from my childhood that my father was unnaturally fond of the voice of Andy Stewart and his Scottish soldier.)

I have been following what has passes for the debate closely, primarily so that I can hold my own when Archie and I meet for a glass or two in the Bar du Marché, and I concur absolutely that Scotland has been effectively disenfranchised in recent decades and I think that, were I Scottish, I would be voting ‘yes’.

In fact, even as an Englishman who will probably have to suffer generations of Tory or UKIP hegemony should the vote be for independence, my vote would still be ‘yes’.

It would be ‘yes’ because, like millions of us outside the political class and the Westminster bubble, I feel that the agenda being pursued by our politicians – of all parties - has little in common with the real concerns of ordinary people.

And there is enough of the situationist in me still to want the Scots to throw the entire establishment into turmoil and see what comes out subsequently.

In my more rational moments, however, it seems to me that a form of federalism is the long-term solution. I hold it be self-evident that there are aspects of our lives over which each nation – England, Wales, Scotland – should have total control. Equally, there are elements which we collectively, as a republic, can act together and thus derive greater strength and greater influence in the world. A similar arrangement could operate in Ireland.

Apart from sporting allegiance, I am not a nationalist. As Mick McGahey, the Scottish miners’ leader, said, “nationalism is a bourgeois deviation from the class struggle”.

But I have been impressed by the way in which the ‘yes’ campaign has focused on the benefits which might accrue to those who are being ignored by the neo-liberal economics of the political class. And even the most casual observer of the news reports of the debate will have realised that the richer and more prosperous is an individual, the more likely are they to support the union. And vice versa.

I know where my sympathy lies.

Today from the everysmith vault: Dick Gaughan, Workers’ Song, from handful of Earth.