​

My apologies for absence. The plague which I had managed to avoid for a couple of years finally caught up with me on Boxing day last year. The usual stuff: high temperature, cough, sore throat, headache, loss of taste and smell. I quit nicotine and achieved dry January. Enough already, I thought.

But like the struggle, it continued. And yes, April was the cruelest month.

There have been positive blips in the long lethargy, the drowsy numbness which pains my sense. Only now, however, have I felt up to posting for the first time this year. Why now?

Not the good news - the music, the cricket and (in the last couple of weeks) the baseball, friends and grandchildren. It’s the bad news. It’s the fucking politics.

Jill won’t listen or watch.  But I feel drawn to the spectacle; to the viciousness of the Tories and the refusal of Labour to recognise and commit to repealing the ideological nastiness.

It’s the anger and the frustration that has woken me from the drowsiness, the numbness of the last few months.

I feel better for it.

Today from the everysmith vaults: Bob’s sensational series of shows across Europe with random covers from the Dead, Van Morrison, Merle Haggard, has been a constant. But today, Bennyboy released his Best of: In the End There’s Just a Song. Even by his standards, it is a very special compilation.

I am writing this on ‘short rest’. A wild card game against the Yankees followed by a fantastic and ultimately successful series against the Rays have conspired to deprive me of sleep and contribute major stress to my extended waking hours. But the Sox are now champions of the ALE and there are two sleeps available before the first of the ALCS against either the White Sox or the Astros. There is a sense in this solitary part of the Red Sox Nation that the Sox are on a roll.

Being a Sox fan in Europe means long nights. Games mostly start after midnight, and even the game 3 afternoon start at Fenway (9pm BST) went to extra innings and continued into the early hours. But during the day and early evening, normal life continues and has its own highlights.

One such took place last Friday, the anniversary of my father’s death. After 18 months or so, the International String Quartet series returned to Leamington, featuring the Sacconi Quartet. I had missed their previous performance at the Pump Rooms, a decade ago, so was keen to be right upfront for their return. In a heavily and professionally Covid-proofed auditorium, I managed to reserve Seat B1.

In fact, the attraction was not solely the Sacconi, nor even the return of live chamber music to my neck of the woods; it was the programme.

The Sacconi were to play (after the obligatory Haydn warm-up) the eighth of Shostakovich’s quartets and to devote the second half of the concert to the String Quartet In C# minor, Opus 131 by Beethoven.

The latter has been one of my favourite pieces of music. I have a dozen or more versions of it at home and one of them will doubtless figure in my list of Desert Island Discs. The Sacconi did it more than justice: they are are a powerful, muscular band and they brought out the grandeur of the fugue, the joy (in the Allegro) and passion throughout, whilst addressing the delicacy and profundity of the Adagio. It is a heavy responsibility to play this masterwork. The Sacconi took it on and triumphed.

But by then, we knew they would. We had already heard the Shostakovich 8th, his 1960 response to a visit to a bombed-out Dresden.

I mentioned that it was the anniversary of my father’s death because he was a bomber pilot in the RAF during the war. And a distinguished one, with a DFC and AFC to prove the point.

I do not know whether he was involved in those controversial raids in mid-February 1945, during which the city was systematically destroyed and more than 30,000 civilians are believed to have died. (Some estimates place it over 200,000.) At this stage of the war, the only ‘civilians’ would have been the elderly and sick, women and children.

It has been described as a war crime, principally by those of my political persuasion. But it is significant that Churchill, in his massive 6 volume history of the war, makes no mention of the Dresden destruction.

As I say, I have no idea if my father was one of those involved. He never spoke of it, but then he never spoke of any of his wartime experiences.

But I know enough of him to know that he would have listened to the Shostakovich quartet and, as did Shostakovich himself when it was played to him by the Borodin, “buried his head in his hands and wept”.

Today from the everysmith vaults: Away from performances and mlb.tv, I am listening to English music. Warlock, Delius, Elgar and - currently - Vaughan Williams. It's A Sea Symphony​ playing right now. 

Bob's birthday took about three weeks. It included much preliminary listening to albums and shows as well as tuning in to Radio 4 which ran a number of Bob-related broadcasts which exceeded my expectations; notably the Front Row conversation and the play Dinner with Dylan.
 
I commend both to you. But the celebrations really began with the arrival – by courier! – of Michael Gray’s Outtakes on Bob Dylan (#13 since you ask).
 
Anyone with even a passing interest in the extraordinary genius of Bob Dylan will be aware of the commentary, critiques and criticism provided by Michael Gray. We have all taken from our shelves our copy of The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia to confirm a fact or check a reference and found ourselves, hours later, moving seamlessly from one entry to another.
 
Outtakes on Bob Dylan is different from the encyclopedia and from Song & Dance Man. It is more personal, more subjective. And because the selected pieces were written in real time, more alive and immediate, less retrospective.
 
The book begins in 1966 and subsequently covers if not every year, certainly every period of Bob. Part of my enjoyment is the realisation that Michael and I attended many of the same shows, though not always coming to similar judgements. One show on which we agreed was Bob’s dreadful performance on the first night in Birmingham (UK) with Tom Petty in 1987. It is the only Bob show I have ever left early, out of embarrassment, and the story goes that, as Bob started a new song, one Heartbreaker asked Petty what it was. “Dunno, but it’s in D” said Petty. Michael is right that the next two nights were a transformation. But that’s Bob being Bob and there are countless examples in Outtakes, because Michael is always honest. He is, primarily, a fan but his academic rigour is never relaxed. He will never, as I do, look to justify or praise when there is no reason.
 
Many of the selected pieces are familiar, but even I cannot keep up with every item of Dylanology in every periodical. So many are new to me, including of course the recently written essay on Rough & Rowdy Ways.
 
This is a fine piece of work, worthy of the exhortation given to Michael by an editor many years ago that he “should do an FR Leavis on Dylan”. Spoiler alert: Rough & Rowdy Ways “isn’t a masterpiece, but it’s a work of depth, warm resonance, invention and generosity.”
 
One final recommendation: the penultimate essay is a moving tribute to Bob Dylan 8-for-43 Willis. I met Bob Willis, a long-standing friend of Michael, twice only. The first time was at a Bob concert (one of the Birmingham shows in ’87)when we stood at adjacent urinals before the show and talked cricket; the second was at Lord’s when we talked about the number of bootlegs we each possessed.
 
That Michael who watches tennis in the summer was a friend of an English cricket legend is a measure of the man. And this obituary a measure of his writing.
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: The three shows in Birmingham from 1987. Jeez, that first night was awful.

​A week ago, I started a post entitled Morgan: A Suitable Case For Treatment which concerned the tantrum thrown by Piers Morgan when faced with mild criticism of his arrogance and racism as presenter of a TV show which I have never seen. But I decided that Morgan has had enough column miles. A few days ago, I drafted a some thoughts on the upcoming baseball season. But it would be based on nothing more than TV coverage of half a dozen spring training games. And yesterday, I began a rant about Starmer’s (lack of) leadership and policies, with particular reference to the Spycops and Police and Crime bills. But to continue would be to echo of the thoughts of four hundred thousand or so party members. So today, I wrote this:
 
“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel” said Samuel Johnson. “Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious” said Oscar Wilde.
 
What say you? And what say you to those who believe that patriotism can only be expressed by ostentatious embracing of the flag?

​Or rather, The Flag?
 
By order of a scoundrel, The Flag must now be displayed outside public buildings 365 days a year. And other flags must be flown in a subordinate position in order to reinforce our colonial past. Its absence is now regarded as an indication of lack of patriotic fervour, according to a Tory MP who criticised the new (Tory, Tory donor) Director-General of the BBC for producing an annual report without a single image of the flag – a charge which, paradoxically or perhaps hypocritically, could also be applied to the 2019 Conservative manifesto.
 
This flag-waving is trivial and pathetic in itself. But it points to something rather more serious and profound.
 
The flag is no longer an emblem of unity and democracy, but a statement of political philosophy. Or, at least, a statement of a motley collection of prejudices and bigotry.
 
The extreme right, the Tommy Robinsons, the Nigel Farages et al, appropriated the union flag as a form of short hand for racism. Patriotism itself became a synonym for white privilege.
 
It is this manifestation of the flag which has been embraced by Johnson and the Conservative Party. And before we know it, it will be by law propping up classrooms and assemblies of all kinds.
 
Already, it has been adopted in a toadying, servile manner by Starmer and the ‘leadership’ of the Labour Party. And there are many, including me, who fear that this move anticipates the adoption of the policies and attitudes which the flag now represents.
 
Democracy is discussion, debate, disagreement. The flag is about none of these things. In the 21st century, it symbolizes the imposition of one set of values over all others.
 
And when it is flown atop any number of greasy poles, I for one will not salute it.
 
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: I’m listening to the Dead in 1981, a 3 hour plus show from Essen. The band is on great form until they welcome on-stage one Pete Townsend from The Who. It’s not a great mix, I’m afraid.

There can be few of my generation who remain immune to the works of Joni Mitchell and David Hockney. I’m not saying you have had to love them, or even like them; merely that you must be aware of them and respect them. Joni’s songs, Hockney’s paintings and drawings, have measured out our lives. They are legends.
 
The image is from 2019, when it apparently “commandeered the internet”, but my politics, baseball and Dylan-obsessed Twitter feed failed to alert me at the time. So it was only this week that a random re-tweet brought it full screen on my iPad. It was minus four outside at the time, and the weather as bleak as our mood. We were in the middle of a pandemic and in lockdown. We were desperate for some colour in our lives.
 
This remarkable picture, a snapshot really, provided it. I printed it out for Jill to frame so that we could have a constant reminder of the happiness and contentment it epitomizes. (A thing of beauty is a joy forever.)

It is about ageing, about life, about colour.
 
And this despite the fact that Hockney has recovered from a stroke and Joni is suffering from Morgellons Disease and had to learn to walk again after a brain aneurysm.
 
So it is a powerful representation of optimism, of determination, of commitment to living. And of friendship and companionship and shared interests.
 
I re-post it now for those who haven’t seen it and need to see it. Which is all of us.

Today from the everysmith vaults

​Coincidentally, on the morning after I had first seen it, I came across a website which was featuring the original demo takes of The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Joni’s 1975 album which eschewed the confessional voice of earlier recordings and introduced jazz, rock, sampling. But the demos were acoustic: her beautiful voice, piano and guitar. It came to me with the title The Seeding of Summer Lawns which I love. I commend it to you.

It’s been a busy week. I know, this is not an opening sentence that you will see often these days but if you extend your definition of the word ‘busy’, you’ll know what I mean. Think of it as a verb rather than an adjective; as in “I have been busying myself with a variety of sedentary activities”.
 
These ‘activities’ – another word I use loosely – are better characterized by the original Old English bisig, meaning careful, anxious, diligent.
 
And it is carefully, anxiously, diligently, that I have been following the news. I have watched and listened, read and wrote, considered, responded and ‘reacted’. I have liked, shared, commented, and re-tweeted far more than my blood pressure can handle. I have busied myself with some thankless and demeaning exchanges on local political forums – “I have photocopied your vile post Mr Smith” – and engaged in a series of WhatsApp conversations without discovering what’s up or down.
 
But then two things happened that transformed my sense of ennui.
 
The first was the appearance on Channel 4 of live test cricket, and those who took the decision to outbid Sky must be very happy. I certainly am, because the test, which finished an hour or so ago with a victory for England, was a superb game from beginning to end.
 
Joe Root batted magnificently and captained well. Given India’s fightback on the last day of their final test against Australia, his decision not to enforce the follow-on was sensible and correct.
 
Of course, Root knew that he could rely on Anderson, and Anderson did what Anderson does. That first over, in which his reverse swing did for Gill and Rahane, was as good as any I have seen. And I saw Michael Holding.

​

​The day the test match began, I received my pre-ordered copy of Empireland by Sathnam Sanghera, and I read the opening chapters between overs. He has done his research on the attitudes and methods of British imperialism, and is not afraid to itemize some of the quite appalling actions carried out in pursuit of power and profit, necessary because, as he points out, this aspect of the Empire is not even mentioned, never mind taught in British schools.
 
But his sub-title is How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain. It’s more specific and personal than this, because the book is actually about how imperialism has shaped Sathnam Sanghera: he is open about his own experience growing up in Wolverhampton (Enoch Powell’s constituency), not knowing English until he attended school, but took a first in English at Cambridge and has forged a career in journalism and writer (not always the same thing).
 
He was working for the FT when I knew him, but is now with The Times and Sunday Times, so I seldom see his columns and features, restricting myself to his books (The Boy With The Top-Knot, Marriage Material and now Empireland) where I find myself in awe of his honesty and his prose.
 
Test cricket and a good book. Reasons to be cheerful, part 1.
 
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: Joan Osborne sang with the Dead, or at least the post-Jerry variants of the Dead, and I have long been an admirer. But have only just discovered that she also tackled Bob’s oeuvre. Today, I am playing a show from Charleston, WV in which she shows that she is one of the few who can bring something new to a Bob song. Her version of Spanish Harlem Incident is sublime. Reasons to be cheerful, part 2!

​Crow Court by Andy Charman is greater than the sum of its parts, of which there are fourteen. Each might stand alone – and indeed a couple have been published as such. But it is in this form, in this novel, that the short stories, with their precise observations of people and landscape, are integrated and interwoven to create the diverse community of Wimborne Minster between 1840 and 1863.
 
It is a fascinating read, which I can’t tell you too much about without triggering a spoiler alert. But it begins with marriage plans and the apparent suicide of the chorister scheduled to perform a solo at the ceremony. And this is closely followed by the murder of the choirmaster, which prompts suspicion and relief in equal measure throughout the town. What follows is the long search for justice, examining the suspects and their relationships.
 
So it’s a murder mystery. But it is also a description and an examination of a changing way of life in a provincial town, with its class consciousness and power structures, its received pronunciation and its ‘Dorzet’ dialect. Dorset in general and Wimborne in particular are central to the narratives. This is not a story that could be transported to any other part of the country: its truths, its authenticity, stem from its sense of place, which we see from the inside and the outside.
 
Nor could it be transported into another era. In 1840, Victoria is on the throne and the Victorian Age is off to a flying start. The railways are opening up the provinces, welcome to some, frightening to others. And by the end of the book, Darwin’s Origin of Species has been published. This new world-view reaches Wimborne as the story evolves to its conclusion.
 
So it’s a history book also. A social history. It is possible to read it as a form of allegory, with characters ‘representing’ their class, their status, their position. Don’t. They are far from stereotypes. Characters are developed with a gentle, nuanced, understated accumulation of detail over many episodes and more years.
 
I read Crow Court in a single sitting. I shall read it again because Andy Charman’s beautiful prose belies the issues of his subject matter. I shall read it again because it works on so many levels and I know it will repay my attentions. I shall read it again in order to master the Dorzet dialect, for which a glossary is helpfully included, as fascinating to read as an Amis footnote. Jill and I have already adopted ‘dewbit’ to describe our first morning meal.
 
Most of all, I shall read it again because it’s without doubt my book of the month and will probably be my book of the year. Unless I am very fortunate.
 
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: Yesterday was the birthday of Franz Schubert. I am celebrating with the String Quartet #15, played by the New Orford String Quartet.
 

​You’re a headhunter. You are tasked by the Labour Party to recruit a “social listening and media organising manager” who will work in the office of the Leader of the Opposition. Where do you start and finish your search?
 
There are, of course, thousands of young socialists who are remarkably adept at social media. But you don’t want one of those. The brief is quite clear that socialists, especially those who may have expressed support for the Corbyn project, will not be considered. And the first job of the new “social listening” guru will probably be to root out these people from the party itself.
 
You glance at the social media consultants in the States, but they are all connected with Trump. Russia, the home of some of the hackers you most admire, is something of an issue for geo-political reasons.
 
And then, you have an epiphany. Israel!
 
Israel was a pioneer of electronic surveillance, manipulation and blackmail. It even had its own notorious specialist group dedicated to these cyber-warfare activities. Surely someone from Unit 8200 might be available, especially now that, under Starmer, Labour is turning its back on the cause of Palestinian rights.
 
“Hang about. This guy looks promising. He was an analyst and an officer in Unit 8200. Nearly five years in Israeli military intelligence spying on Palestinians is just the kind of experience we are looking for.”
 
“What’s his name?”
 
“Assaf Kaplan.”
 
“Is he socialist?”
 
“Oh no. He was running the Israeli Labour Party campaign when they got wiped out. Just six seats these days.”
 
“He sounds perfect. Let’s get him in.”
 
And get him in they did. He’s been in charge of social media surveillance since December last year. And he’s doing a good job, trawling through members’ tweets and Facebook posts to keep the party free from any socialist tendencies whilst removing any reference to his military experience from his LinkedIn profile.
 
Appropriately neither Kaplan nor Starmer will comment.
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: Rose Simpson is publishing a memoir. Based on interviews and extracts, Muse, Odalisque, Handmaiden: A Girl's Life in the Incredible String Band is fascinating stuff and in preparation for its official publication, I am working my way through the ISB oeuvre and loving it.

“Now more than ever, people deserve principled leadership based on conviction, not party political calculation.”
 
We know from Angela Rayner that, under the new leadership, what is true is not acceptable: so it is probably no longer acceptable for a member of the Labour party to quote Caroline Lucas approvingly.
 
But I do so now on this New Year’s Eve, the day after the vote on the EU trade bill and the day before we enter 2021 as an insular nation at the whim of global events and Johnson’s right-wing idiocies.
 
Yesterday evening, I ranted on a local Labour forum about my disgust at the party’s response, which produced only a single vote against a policy which had the backing of merely 26.5% of the British population in 2016. (That vote was many things, but the one thing it clearly wasn’t is “the will of the people”.)
 
This morning, I am attempting to recollect that emotion in tranquillity; to enter 2021 with a degree of equanimity; to find positives in the midst of this plethora of angst-ridden negativity.
 
It is not easy. Yesterday, in the House of Commons, our representatives voted 521 to 73 in favour of a bill which – and I am quoting defiantly from Caroline Lucas again – “cuts British jobs, sidelines our services sector, undermines hard-won protections for the environment, workers’ rights and consumers, and turns Kent into a diesel-stained monument to hubris and political myopia”.
 
The principal sufferers from this hubris and myopia are, unfortunately, the principals of our two major parties. Both Johnson and Starmer have changed their minds frequently on this key issue, and not because the facts changed. Whenever it was politically expedient, the principals changed their principles. Whenever there was a chance to undermine their leaders and climb the greasy pole to leadership positions, they seized the opportunity. And they were ruthless in pursuing power: Johnson culling the liberal intelligentsia of the Tory party; Starmer expelling or suspending those who raised the mildest of objections to his authoritarianism.
 
Both claim to be curing divisions and putting an end to factionalism. But both are achieving this by enforcing the hegemony of their own factions and, in Starmer’s case, refusing the opportunity for members even to discuss his actions.
 
Yesterday showed that, in the parliamentary parties at least, there is no principled opposition left in either party. Under Starmer, Labour has failed to vote against a succession of bills: allowing surveillance, torture, Covid corruption and incompetence and Brexit. What is the point of a two-party system when both are at one? And at one not only with each other but with the media, the elite, the ruling class?
 
Starmer said, in a Johnsonian reference, that he now regards the Brexit issue as closed. Closed it may be, but there will be no closure.
 
He wants it to be so. He can stop us discussing it. He can suspend or expel those of us who do. But right now, on the eve of a new year outside Europe, in the middle of a pandemic, and with no confidence in our governance, I despair.
 
I do, however, wish everyone a happy new year. Good luck!

Today from the everysmith vaults: Perversely, on the sixth day of Christmas, I am listening to the St Matthew  Passion. 

​Rudi  Dutschke arrived in Cambridge in 1969, courtesy of Clare Hall, where he was to recuperate from injuries sustained in an assassination attempt and complete his dissertation on Georg Lukacs. He did not engage with the student politics of that time, although his meticulous reticence did not prevent Heath from deporting him from the UK for doing precisely that. But he did talk and speak, informally and discreetly, and it was from his talks that I was introduced to Gramsci and, more particularly, to Dutschke’s concept of the ‘long march through the institutions’.
 
People are re-reading Gramsci right now, not least because of his development of the notion of hegemony, arguing that the ruling class enforces its power not solely through economic and class coercion, but also through ‘ideological illusions’. And those who haven’t read or re-read Gramsci are attributing the phrase ‘long march through the institutions’ to Gramsci rather than Dutschke.
 
One person who clearly has read Gramsci is Dominic Cummings. And although he is no longer at the helm in Downing Street, he has already accomplished a rapid route march through the institution of No. 10 and beyond.
 
The Tory party itself was the first to be transformed, as Johnson expelled the majority of those with any intellect or compassion, leaving s with the likes of Hancock, Williamson and Patel in important offices of state.
 
Now, we have the EHRC, which has no black commissioners and has just appointed a man who boasts that even his children think he’s racist.
 
Then there is the BBC, where each new appointment nudges the prevailing culture further to the right. And the mainstream media, which is overwhelmingly in the hands of the ruling elite.
 
Perhaps most fundamentally, we have seen a series of sackings and forced resignations of senior civil servants.
 
That is quite an achievement for an administration – I use the word loosely – which took power exactly a year ago.
 
Richard Neville, the founder of the magazine Oz back in the ‘60s, said that  “There is but an inch between the positions of the Tory and Labour parties” he said, “but it is in that inch that the British people live”.
 
That inch expands and diminishes occasionally, as it did when Labour embraced the so-called Corbyn project. For a couple of years, it became a yawning chasm, prompting the neo-liberals to respond in terror with ad hominem attacks on Corbyn himself, Diane Abbot, John McDonnell et al.
 
But with the election of Starmer to the leadership, it is clear that the Labour Party is the next institution in line for the marchers.
 
The suspension of Corbyn, the sacking of Long-Bailey, the appointment of Evans, the prevention of any debate within the party, these are not individual acts of authoritarianism. They are part of a strategy.
 
The 57,000 or so members who have left since his election will not be missed  by the Starmer cabal. Indeed, their resignations will be welcomed. Each resignation reinforces the hegemony.
 
Richard Neville’s inch is now measured in millimetres, if at all.  And the position of it is significantly to the right.
 
But the divide within the party itself, between the leadership and the membership, is huge.


Today from the everysmith vaults: Not Bob's Christmas album, but a return - after a month-long hiatus - to Rough & Rowdy Ways. Still extraordinary.