Plastic is everywhere, including my gut.
I’m not talking about microfilaments recently discovered in bottled water and
coke. I drink neither. I’m talking about teabags. Plastic in teabags. Who’da
thunk?I drink gallons of the stuff, cup
after cup, and yet I should have known. The rhododendrons did their best.
Rhododendrons don’t like tea as such, but
they thrive on the tannic acid – which is fine if we’re talking about loose
tealeaves fresh from a drained pot. But we’re talking teabags here, and now I
understand why they never seemed to compost but instead piled up like small
mountains of brown withered skulls at the base of each plant.
They must have seen me coming, the
rhododendrons, and groaned— What’s the fool doing now?— winced as the mountains
grew bigger.
Since I’ve seen the light, tea drinking has
become a whole new experience. I’m drinking the tea my mother served before the
bag raised its hideous head, and rhododendrons no longer groan on seeing me
coming. There were some teething problems – the want of a tea cosy – vital if
you’re serving tea from a pot that loses heat quickly – and here is one made by
a thoughtful friend. She also made me an apron, which, forgive me, I’m not
going to wear here.
But the experience of ‘real’ tea instead of
the dust served in those small, plasticised bags. Five large desert spoons of ‘Assam’
or ‘Strong English Breakfast’ in a warmed pot, will give you three cups of
excellent tea. My blood is buzzing after the third cup and I’m set up for the
day. My rhododendrons are happy too.
I recently rediscovered how good the
Rolling Stones ‘Their Satanic Majesty’s Request’ is. I was on the treadmill at
the time, ‘The Citadel’ booming in my ears on shuffle. Mind you, anything
sounds good on the Treadmill, apart from, perhaps, Hildegarde de Bingen.
What’s fascinating is the initial reaction
to it from some critics, pontificating as though they had tablets of stone up their backside and the voice of God on their tongue. Rolling Stone (the magazine)
saw it as a sad aberration from what the Stones did best – combining the ‘lack of
pretension and sentimentality of the blues with the rawness and toughness of
hard rock.’I love that aspect of the
Stones but abhor an ‘orthodoxy’ that suggests they should do nothing but that.
Have you ever listened to ‘The Best of Chuck Berry’ where after twenty minutes
you realise every track is essentially the same? How on earth could you sustain
a fifty-four year career on that?
Fifty-four years.
Other critics seek to make excuses, like
social workers, or lawyers for the defence trying to ‘get off’ a dodgy client.
They point out that 1967 was a very bad year for the Stones, citing their drug
busts, Mars bars, the increasingly unstable Brian Jones and interpersonal
rivalries made worse, no doubt, after Keith Richards seduced Jones’ girlfriend
Anita Pallenberg. Jagger later claimed
the stones went wild on Satanic Majesties: ‘to piss Andrew off, because he was
such a pain in the neck. Because he didn’t understand it. The more we wanted to
unload him, we decided to go on this path to alienate him.’ Jagger was
referring to their manager Andrew Loog Oldham. One suspects there were more
than musical differences involved. Jagger would not have been unaware that
Oldham was making five times as much money than he was – as good a reason as
any to offload him.Satanic Majesties
was the means. Their contract with Oldham stipulated that he paid all recording
costs and studio time. Is it merely coincidence that the recording of Satanic
Majesties stretched from February to November (admittedly with drug busts in
between)? It also explains the appalling ‘Gomper,’ which must have convinced
Oldham to pack up and run.
But enough of the excuses. Satanic
Majesties doesn’t need any. Charlie Watts’s drumming as much as anything else,
gives it a groove contemporary psychedelia lacked. It’s what you get when you
combine the power rhythms of R&B with the more ornate textures of ‘Flower
Power’ sound. In this respect it is very much an artefact of its time and at
the same time unique. In contrast, Sergeant Pepper
is trapped in its time, its very success and memories evoked untranslatable to
the present. This is not so true of Satanic Majesties.
Stand out tracks for me are: ‘Citadel’
where Richards punches and thunders on guitar and provides, perhaps a foretaste
of Jumping Jack Flash
The Lantern with its snappy drum and acoustic guitar
The acoustic guitar driven 2000 Man, where Jagger anticipates aspects of the present day:
'Well my wife still respects me
I really misuse her
I'm having an affair with a random computer
Don't you know I'm a 2000 man'
She's a Rainbow with Nicky Hopkin's beautiful ascending motif on piano and strings arranged by Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones.
And last but not least In Another Land, sung and composed by
Bill Whyman. The snore may be his too.
The eulogy is over, though mercifully the Stones are not yet dead.
I love shopping, a disturbing admission for
a man. Let me clarify, I’m not talking about clothes. That I abhor. I’m happy
with what I’ve got until my wife points out they’ve largely disintegrated. Then
it’s a brief foray out and then home.
No, I’m talking about food-shopping, the
last residual shadow of man, the primitive hunter – or in my case, man with an
appetite. What adds piquancy to the
twice weekly event is the nearly two mile walk into Monmouth – the same walk
but one that changes with the seasons.
Summer, a view from Osbaston Road
Autumn. Vauxhall Field and a glimpse of the River Monnow
Autumn, the Monnow and a glimpse of Vauxhall field.
Winter, Vauxhall Field and St Mary's Church
Winter, Vauxhall Field and St Mary's Church touched by God.
Uh, uh. Something's brewing. (My Turner moment)
Snow!
Snow, however, is the big event, and its
effect on people is weird. People walk for starters, they have to, and greet
each other like comrades in arms, as though we’ve just weathered another night
of the blitz. Earnest conversations
ensue as to whether there is still milk in Waitrose. If only Napoleon’s
soldiers had it so good on their retreat from Moscow. And yes there was milk in
Waitrose. There’s always milk in Waitrose. Waitrose will have milk come the
Apocalypse. Tesco, I’m not so sure about.
Osbaston Road. The trudge into town
A cold looking River Monnow
Crossing the Monnow.
Vauxhall Field and St Mary's
People!
No People
But then comes the thaw and the ‘walkers’
vanish, and a new season begins.
Life is so uncertain and short. One moment
you’re flying without a care in the world, the next minute you’re dead. The
thought came to mind when I read about a pheasant that flew into the helmet of
a biker at a combined speed of 60mph.The six-pound bird shot from over a hedge and crashed through the man’s
helmet. Both died on the instant.
It is important to note that both were
sober, for it leads on to another story in the same newspaper.
A lawyer’s widow caught drink driving
argued in court that she should not be banned from driving as her driveway was
too long to walk down.
She had been driving a £79,000 Mercedes G
–class 4x4 and was three times over the legal limit, but her lawyer (whom
managed to keep a straight face) argued that since her drive was a quarter of a
mile long, she would have to make significant lifestyle changes should a
driving ban come into effect.The good
lady also asked not to do Community Work. She claimed it would ‘put her in an
alien surrounding,’ as she had never worked.
She was banned from driving for two years,
fined £560 with £750 costs but was spared from working with the great unwashed.
It seems, on the whole, a fair judgement,
though the judge, no doubt coming from a similar background, shared her view
that a ‘lady’ shouldn’t be expected to work. He replaced ‘Community work’ with
a ‘rehabilitation course’ (whatever that is) instead.
