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Title: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Kevin Cryan on Today at 12:07 http://www.boisdale.co.uk/images//products/YouCantDoThat.jpg Alan Barnes and Simon Wallace, both well known in this parish, have made their contributions to Boisdale Blue Rhythm Band (http://www.boisdale.co.uk/belgravia/live_jazz.aspx)'s You Can't Do That!, a jazz CD that thumbs its nose at all those frame rules and regulations which deny us the right to smoke and drink. Eighteen classics are topped and tailed by two new tracks deploring the ban on consensual smoking in public. Alan Banes and playwright, and regular frequenter of smoky places, Alan Plater (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Plater), have composed the opener, I'm Going Outside, part of which goes: I'm going outside, I may be some time It was good enough for Churchill, but now it’s a crime The puritans in Whitehall say I’m lower than slime So I'm going outside and I may be some time They've issued banning orders to the taprooms and clubs You can only have a smoke if you’re in Wormwood Scrubs The wagging of the fingers and the shaking of heads Have sent us all a-scurrying to the cycle sheds. Simon Wallace has teamed up with his regular writing partner, lyricist Fran Landesman (http://www.franlandesman.com/), to come up with the closing track, The Last Smoker. The last smoker stares hopelessly out in the rain The last smoker is searching his pockets in vain The smoke police are closing in, their sniffers never fail If they detect a whiff of smoke, the culprit goes to jail ........ Even if you don't support the cause, the album, which has some terrific playing on it, and costs a mere mere tenner (an alternative use for that "ten quid from the bank"), is a really good buy. Kevin Cryan |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by naomi on 21.12.07 at 00:13 cf [as I think academics say] Francis Poulenc's atmospheric song "Hotel", a setting of Apollinaire, and best heard sung in a lightish baritone. I have copied the text from an extremely useful website called The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Ma chambre a la forme d'une cage, Le soleil passe son bras par la fenêtre. Mais moi qui veux fumer pour faire des mirages J'allume au feu du jour ma cigarette. Je ne veux pas travailler - je veux fumer. Naomi (qui ne veut pas fumer, you understand ;)) |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Kevin Cryan on 21.12.07 at 10:09 on 12/21/07 at 00:13:19, naomi wrote :
"....as I think academics say"? You are not trying to hide something of your past life, are you? If there is a "cf" it's probably Dieu Fumeur de Havanes by Serge Gainsbourg. Dieu est un fumeur de havanes Je vois ses nuages gris Je sais qu'il fume même la nuit Comme moi ma chérie God the smoker!!! That's hard to beat. Kevin Cryan |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Ian Chippett on 21.12.07 at 11:55 There's always the singing Postman and his unforgettable "Have you Got A Light, Boy?." Ian C. Xmas Quiz: How many PA/CJ songs refer to the weed? There's The Beautiful Changes and "Prince of Aquitaine." |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Gerry Smith on 21.12.07 at 14:30 "I've seen a girl throw back her hair to light a cigarette" (LB) I always liked the line: "There's Howard Hughes in blue suede shoes Smiling at the Majorette, smoking Winston cigarettes" from Genesis', The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. I used to think it was the majorette who is smoking Winston cigarettes, but the comma suggests that it is Howard Hughes. Gerry |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by BogusTrumper on 21.12.07 at 14:31 on 12/21/07 at 11:55:08, Ian Chippett wrote :
OMG - from the really dim and really distant past. I had forgotten that one |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Ian Chippett on 21.12.07 at 15:24 Another Rock victim, it seems... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Smethurst Doesn't Rider To The World's End refer to "fields of ash?" Can't remember the exact line offhand... Ian C |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by David Morgan on 21.12.07 at 18:08 Xmas Quiz: "That girl at the far side of the bar Waves the smoke of cigarettes away..." (The Ties That Bind You) The Rider indeed visited the plains of ash, Ian - though I think CJ was in a particularly bleak mood that day and had in mind the burning of more than a ciggy! David M |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Kevin Cryan on 21.12.07 at 20:04 on 12/21/07 at 18:08:48, David Morgan wrote :
David, I think that he may also have had in mind this bleak passage from F. Scott Fitzgerald (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott_Fitzgerald)'s novel The Great Gatsby (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Gatsby-Penguin-Popular-Classics/dp/0140620184). About half-way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes - a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight. Incidentally, Flusing Meadows Corona Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flushing_Meadows%E2%80%93Corona_Park) in northern Queens, New York, was, in the late 1930s, created from that "fantastic farm where ashes grow" which Fitzgerald describes in the novel. Kevin Cryan |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Kevin Cryan on 21.12.07 at 20:17 on 12/21/07 at 11:55:08, Ian Chippett wrote :
There is of course Laughing Boy How could you forget that one and remember The Singing Postman? I've seen a girl hold back her hair to light a cigarette And things like that a man like me can't easily forget Kevin Cryan |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Ian Chippett on 21.12.07 at 20:26 Kevin wrote; <<How could you forget that one and remember The Singing Postman? I've seen a girl hold back her hair to light a cigarette And things like that a man like me can't easily forget >> Alas, things like that a man like me can easily forget. I must have been tired: remember that "the man who's shattered is the man from Bristol." Ian C |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Gerry Smith on 22.12.07 at 04:10 Hi Ian/Kevin I beat yers both both to the Laughing Boy reference! See my post (supra) or is that a bit academic too?! Gerry Drinking a sessionman's booze in Mayfield |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Kevin Cryan on 22.12.07 at 11:17 on 12/22/07 at 04:10:31, Gerry Smith wrote :
Yes, Gerry, I was fully aware that you beat us both. But then I was not trying to beat anyone; I was just wondering out loud how anyone could forget Laughing Boy and remember The Singing Postman. For the quiz. Who does this refer to? With a second line in lukewarm Coke Busting for a decent smoke To break the round of toil. on 12/22/07 at 04:10:31, Gerry Smith wrote :
I suspect that if I were to consult Naomi, she wouldn't think it a bit too academic? She might pretend (http://www.peteatkin.com/cgi-bin/mv/YaBB.cgi?board=offtopic;action=display;num=1198152422;start=1#1) she did. But, then, who am I to say? Kevin |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by bobtaylor on 22.12.07 at 11:30 Great thread. How about "I See The Smoker" (poss misheard)? "Mornings now I breakfast in the tower then travel thirty floors to the garage" ...presumably a designated smoking area. ;D There's also "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)" by Tex Williams and others. This though carries an anti-weed message. I enjoyed Kevin's reference to The Great Gatsby, and reading it evoked the exact feelings I have when listening to that part of Rider To The World's End. Off topic, but whilst on the subject of "I See The Joker" and possibly missheard lyrics (mondegreens), for years I heard "...legitimate from medicine on the street", which seemed suitably Jamesian and authentically arcane. Merry Christmas from Spain, to all our readers, Bob Taylor. |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Keith Busby on 22.12.07 at 15:21 Oh well, if we're being academic, here is Mallarmé's use of the cigar image as an expression his aesthetic. It doesn't exactly lend itself to a musical setting, but Naomi may opine otherwise. ;) Toute l’âme résumée Quand lente nous l’expirons Dans plusieurs ronds de fumée Abolis en autres ronds Atteste quelque cigare Brûlant savamment pour peu Que la cendre se sépare De son clair baiser de feu Ainsi le choeur des romances À la lèvre vole-t-il Exclus-en si tu commences Le réel parce que vil Les sens trop précis rature Ta vague littérature. Keith |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Ian Chippett on 22.12.07 at 16:37 <<They say one row of people passed a joint From Yasgur's Farm clear to Zabriskie Point >> from "Uncle Seabird." Well, it's like a cigarette... I was going to suggest "Eye Of The Universe" which contains "and knows itself a drag" but fortunately thought better of it... Ian C Spacing it out with chasers in Pantin France |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Kevin Cryan on 22.12.07 at 19:56 on 12/22/07 at 15:21:35, Keith Busby wrote :
In Stéphane Mallarmé, you had a man who took his smoking very seriously indeed. To say that he was a serious smoker is to pay him and his poetry a compliment. Hier, j'ai trouvé ma pipe en rêvant une longue soirée de travail, de beau travail d'hiver. Jetées les cigarettes avec toutes les joies enfantines de l'été dans le passé qu'illuminent les feuilles bleues de soleil, les mousselines et reprise ma grave pipe par un homme sérieux qui veut fumer longtemps sans se déranger, afin de mieux travailler : mais je ne m'attendais pas à la surprise que préparait cette délaissée, à peine eus-je tiré la première bouffée, j'oubliai mes grands livres à faire, émerveillé, attendri, je respirais l'hiver dernier qui revenait. Je n'avais pas touché à la fidèle amie depuis ma rentrée en France, et tout Londres, Londres tel que je le vécus en entier à moi seul, il y a un an, est apparu; d'abord les chers brouillards qui emmitouflent nos cervelles et ont, là-bas, une odeur à eux, quand ils pénètrent sous la croisé. Mon tabac sentait une chambre sombre aux meubles de cuir saupoudrés par la poussière du charbon sur lesquels se roulait le maigre chat noir; les grands feux! et la bonne aux bras rouges versant les charbons, et le bruit de ces charbons tombant du seau de tôle dans la corbeille de fer, le matin -- alors que le facteur frappait le double coup solennel, qui me faisait vivre! J'ai revu par les fenêtres ces arbres malades du square désert -- j'ai vu le large, si souvent traversé cet hiver-là, grelottant sur le pont du steamer mouillé de brume et noirci de fumée -- avec ma pauvre bien aimée errante, en habits de voyageuse, une longue robe terne couleur de la poussière des routes, un manteau qui collait humide à ses épaules froides, un de ces chapeaux de paille sans plumes et presque sans rubans, que les riches dames jettent en arrivant, tant ils sont déchiquetés par l'air de la mer et que les pauvres bien aimées regarnissent pour bien des saisons encore. Autour de son cou s'enroulait le terrible mouchoir qu'on agite en se disant adieu pour toujours. My knowledge of French is not good enough what Naomi thought could be done musically with Toute l’âme résumée.., but I think that she'd probably say that nothing could be done with La pipe Kevin Cryan Footnote. It was Charles Baudelaire who was the serious pipe-smoker, although I don't think that he took the pipe as quite seriously as Mallarmé took his cigarettes La Pipe Je suis la pipe d'un auteur; On voit, à contempler ma mine D'Abyssinienne ou de Cafrine, Que mon maître est un grand fumeur. Quand il est comblé de douleur, Je fume comme la chaumine Où se prépare la cuisine Pour le retour du laboureur. J'enlace et je berce son âme Dans le réseau mobile et bleu Qui monte de ma bouche en feu, Et je roule un puissant dictame Qui charme son coeur et guérit De ses fatigues son esprit. |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Gerry Smith on 23.12.07 at 03:06 on 12/22/07 at 11:17:30, Kevin Cryan wrote :
Kevin - I am sorry that, clearly, I offended you with my, as I thought, good natured post regarding the Laughing Boy reference. Not that the whole thing matters a jot , anyway. Nevertheless, I resent the implication in the latter part of your post. Please, consult whomsoever you wish. I can see a day coming when membership of this list will be by interview only. <sigh> Gerry This is *so* tiresome. |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Ian Chippett on 23.12.07 at 12:47 Kevin wrote: <<My knowledge of French is not good enough what Naomi thought could be done musically with Toute l’âme résumée.., but I think that she'd probably say that nothing could be done with La pipe >> Quite so: even the most hardened non-smoking Frenchman would be (to say the least) nonplussed if you offered him a pipe... Ian C |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Keith Busby on 23.12.07 at 13:23 Ian wrote: << Quite so: even the most hardened non-smoking Frenchman would be (to say the least) nonplussed if you offered him a pipe... >> Especially when it's not a pipe. Keith |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Ian Chippett on 23.12.07 at 13:45 Keith wrote: <<Especially when it's not a pipe. >> It so rarely is... :-( I wonder what Magritte had in mind? Ian C |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Kevin Cryan on 23.12.07 at 15:41 on 12/23/07 at 13:45:47, Ian Chippett wrote :
Everything except the Magritte reference* is lost on me. Can somebody explain? As I said, my knowledge of France and French culture is not terribly extensive. Kevin *Magritte painted a pipe (http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:EBWyIK-h_L3wKM:www.artsci.lsu.edu/phil/philo/fs_Magritte_Pipe.jpg) and then painted immediately underneath it the words Ceci n'est pas une pipe (This is not a pipe), thereby making the rather obvious and, to me, trivial point that a painting could never be the thing it represents. |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Keith Busby on 23.12.07 at 16:56 A "pipe" in French slang has sexual connotations. Gallic stereotypes confirmed. Keith |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Kevin Cryan on 23.12.07 at 17:53 on 12/23/07 at 16:56:42, Keith Busby wrote :
Ah ha!! So we have in the the Magritte a double entendre, do we?. That makes sense, if anything of the Surreal can be said to do so. Thanks for the insight. Kevin |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Ian Chippett on 23.12.07 at 19:25 Kevin wrote: <<Ah ha!! So we have in the the Magritte a double entendre, do we?. That makes sense, if anything of the Surreal can be said to do so.>> I can't imagine a Francophone (Magritte was a Belgian) naming his picture like this in all innocence unless the use of the expression is more recent. The French also say "casser sa pipe" meaning "to kick the bucket." When Brassens, a noted pipe smoker died, Libération used the headline "Brassens casse sa pipe." Brassens is worth more than a cursory listen, incidentally. Some say his tunes are all the same and it's only the words which are really interesting. Well, when I arrived in France I could hardly speak a word but spent a lot of time listening to Brassens just for the music. It makes BoTBS sound over-produced but I far prefer this to, say, Brel who goes over the top in the French tradition (OK I know he was Belgian.) Clive says something about this tradition in a TV review of Aznavour. Ian C |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Cathy Corbishley-Michel on 24.12.07 at 20:02 This Thread amazes me and I'm glad to see that it has recently taken a more trivial turn. The smoking ban is probably one of the best things this government has ever done (perhaps the only useful thing) - although they took their time. Today in my role as a consultant pathologist at a large teaching hospital working with the lung cancer team I have looked at five new cases of lung cancer caused by smoking. Merry Christmas - I think not as all of these are inoperable and will be dead in less than a year even with every treatment we can offer now. The main benefit of the ban will be to provide a social atmosphere (lacking smoke) that will discourage young people (well below most MVs age group - but some of us have teenage children) from starting smoking. I feel very sorry for anyone who is already addicted as I am aware how hard it is to give up, but the misery I see on a daily basis in my work with unneccessary premature deaths from heart and lung disease often preceded by months or years of disability saddens me. Dying of breathlessness is one of the nastiest deaths I have seen. When I get back to work on Thursday and Friday my mortuary will be full again, many of the cases will have died in the recent cold weather of exacerbations of thier lung disease and heart attacks/failure and some of them will be not very old! I'm sure the CD is wonderful but I won't be buying it I'm afraid. Maybe I have missed the joke here and it was not meant to be serious. Cathy Corbishley Michel |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Ian Chippett on 25.12.07 at 11:22 Cathy wrote: <<The main benefit of the ban will be to provide a social atmosphere (lacking smoke) that will discourage young people (well below most MVs age group - but some of us have teenage children) from starting smoking. >> I wonder: I gave it up in 1980 after marrying into a family of fanatical non-smokers but now I have three children, all addicted despite living in a smokeless zone. My eldest once spent a few days in hospital for a benign op in a room with a chap with throat cancer, (no tongue, fed through a tube etc) but this didn't stop him (my son) from taking up the habit immediately afterwards. They all cough but refuse to listen to reason. They know it can and probably will happen to them (I knew that when I was at it) but won't admit this in public (again just like me.) Practically all the young people I see these days are smokers despite years of campaigns because it's what you have to do to be like the others. Even punitive taxation doesn't work. I'd bet a small amount that the vast majority of MVs are non-smokers while the majority of their offspring aren't. Hope I'm wrong. Happy Christmas anyway Ian C |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Gerry Smith on 26.12.07 at 03:04 Smoking is something which goes hand in hand with a certain lifestyle and way of being. Not all of us want to live to be 100. We are human, we are fallible, we are not just electrobiochemical machines, we feel. We have spirit, aspiration and desire. If we die, we die. I hate the kind of health fascism handed down by some people who have lovely all-paid-for houses and shiny happy families and all that goes with it, to people who hang on by their fingernails. Cathy, I doubt you have ever been addicted to anything. So how could you possibly understand, notwithstanding your training? What "this (shallow, corrupt and odious) government" is doing is taking away our choices and eroding out liberties over not just the smoking issue, but in many other directions. It is so sad to see so many of the bars and clubs I have gigged in for so long closing or losing viability as a result of lack of patronage since the smoking ban. Gerry |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Ian Chippett on 26.12.07 at 10:46 Gerry wrote: <<Not all of us want to live to be 100. We are human, we are fallible, we are not just electrobiochemical machines, we feel. We have spirit, aspiration and desire. If we die, we die. >> I knew of a woman who was Director of a large charitable organization here in Paris and who chainsmoked herself to lung cancer. After the removal of one of her lungs, she promptly went back to chainsmoking and died of a brand-new cancer shortly afterwards. When I expressed my incredulity at this, my wife explained that the woman in question had decided to die before she was sixty and was quite aware of what she was doing. I can understand how she felt about life in general (Clive's lyrics deal with this all the time) but however awful things may be, it's better to struggle along. "To be or not to be: that is the question To be is better than not to be: that is the answer" Ian C |
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Title: Re: Alan Barnes & Simon Wallace Post by Richard Bleksley on 26.12.07 at 13:01 As one of Ian's probable minority, an MV who does indulge, maybe it's about time I joined in this thread. My case is particularly sad and ironic in that I didn't even start until I was about twenty, and (save for one interval of about six months) I've been hooked ever since. One and a half of my offspring do it too. The half is my daughter, who, after nagging about my disgusting habit all through her teens, started herself when she was at university. Since then she's stopped whenever she's had a non-smoking boyfriend, but has always gone back to it. I just hope that her current (non-smoking) relationship turns out to be stable. I'm well aware of the hazards, but just don't seem to have the will-power to kick it. I can only thank heaven I've never had any contact with heroin… What Ian and Gerry have implied is quite correct. What people want to do, they will do, no matter how bad for them it is, and no amount of punitive taxation or legislation will stop them. You only need to look at the example of Prohibition (whose main achievement seems to have been to deliver the USA into the hands of organised crime) to see that. And nobody has ever, despite prodigies of effort, been able to do anything to stop the trading in and use of hard drugs, even though everybody knows what disastrous effects they can have on your life. |
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