As some of my regulars are probably aware, I’m taking August as a posting Sabbatical. It isn’t a European thing (many Countries seem to take August off) although I will be fitting in a holiday to Spain during the month. I’m particularly looking forward to a visit to Barcelona- I’ve had a fascination with the style of Antoni Gaudi since seeing photos of his works in my youth and I’m looking forward to taking the Kodak up the Basilica.

Thnking back over a hectic July, the highlight for me was the Dean Friedman Concert in Morley. I planned it really carefully so that the show would go well technically and theatrically. There was only one problem- the Turn was late for his sound check. Eventually, I prowled the perimeter of the building a couple of times and, standing looking expectant in Queen Street, an Estate car pulled up and a silver haired troubador wound the window down and said “Are you Ian?” I said I’d hop in and get him round to the back of the Town Hall (as it is all one way there) at which point I realised the Guy was practically living in the car, or certainly using it as a travelling Restaurant. He handed me a couple of boxes, scraped assorted detritus onto the floor & into the back then I eased in. (I’m sure his Jewish Mother would have disapproved- “My Son, the International singer/songwriter, brings disgrace on our family with his shitpit of a car!”). As we navigated the One Way system two thoughts suddenly struck me- he was touring all by himself- and he was having trouble with the gears. Flashback to Northern Telecom in the 80s, where it was Company Policy that all Company Cars had automatic gears as the Canadian Wives struggled with having to drive on the “wrong” side of the road and have to wiggle the wand of power and pedal of slippage as well.

Getting to the Venue, he opened the Boot to reveal a Guitar, a Ukelele, and a suitcase- full of CDs. We unloaded and he moved the car as he didn’t want to risk the wrath of double yellow line guardians. As he drove off, another car pulled up on the lines and the Morley Mayor & Deputy got out- unworried about the Wardens.

He eventually reappeared and the sound check was surprisingly short as he only had accoustic instruments. We sorted out various details of the running order and he agreed to pop upstairs and visit the Mayor in her Parlour (which he thought sounded rather quaint) whilst I nipped home for tea.

Later on, we opened the doors and the expectant crowd arrived, although by 7:55pm Dean hadn’t. Suddenly struck by a thought I nipped round to the side entrance, opened the crash doors- and there he was trying to work out how to get in. To preserve the theatricality, I took him the concealed route backstage (down into the smaller Morleian Hall and through the platform doors) rather than through the audience. I showed him his Dressing Room (labelled Ladies Chorus, the Mens Chorus also led to the Custodian Office so there was the possibility of passing traffic in that one) and left him to prepare, limbering up his vocal chords with some type of Yiddish chant and giving him a chance to put his showbiz togs on (a change of shirt!). At 8:05pm I went down to call beginners please
and he said that if I wanted to introduce him that would be fine. That caught me out slightly, as my mate Lincoln had joked that he wanted to make the offstage announcement & big build up before he found he couldn’t get a pass out but if I’d thought about it I would have arranged for a Mic in the Wings. Anyway, I switched off the house lights, faded up the PAR Cans to 6, nipped on to an expectant silence and made my entirely unscripted announcement for posterity:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Morley. Sorry we don’t have a Bar but we have some cans at the back for the interval which will be 15 minutes. Anyway, enough from me, lets have a big cheer for the main man: Dean Friedman!!!” Cue applause and cheering…

Scurrying back, he gave me a warm smile and a twinkle as he walked on and I returned to the Wings to give him the Cans at 10. Wow! I thought, it is finally here, Dean is playing Morley and the crowd love him already. Finally, I can enjoy the show!

Anyway, I’m going to enjoy August because I can devote time to the other important thing in my life- my family. I’ll still be around keeping an eye on other Blogpower blogs and my other regular haunts but I won’t feel the need to come up with postings. Instead, I’ll mentally file away any experiences and thoughts, hopefully returning energised in September.

Shades of Grey won’t be Tumbleweed though- a number of Blogpower Bloggers have agreed to put some posts up in my absence and I look forward to seeing what has appeared on my return. This is what I see as the spirit of Blogpower, it wouldn’t even have occurred to me six months ago, or have a happy band to call on.

Bye for now.

Guest posters, start your engines…

This is something rather unusual. Fred Fullerton used to be the Chief at the Empire Leicester Square and he had a passion for presentation. About twenty years ago I visited the Empire to see their new laser show that preceded the feature. It had three variants and we were treated to all three. Fred has documented it along the way on a YouTube video which you can watch below. (You also get to see his cat!)

The current Empire was a rebuild of an old theatre and was an early conversion with a Club in the Stalls area. What you can’t see from this is that the Empire had three colour neon cove lighting in the auditorium and that was also controlled as part of the show. The contour curtain was something special, the only other place I knew had one was the Talk of the Town and Radio City Music Hall (New York). You get to see it rise during the third laser routine. Also look closely at the canopy above- it was fitted with twinkling fibre optics.

Photo from Cinephoto.uk, lots more at the other end of the link.

Liz, this is especially for you. I stumbled across it tonight looking of something else and I hope you enjoy it. A lovely song and a few words from your favourite book

We went round Morley’s Charity Shops at the weekend, Karen looking for clothes, David looking for Annuals, me looking for Media (books, CDs, DVDs, Singles etc.).

Morley is well served by Charity shops, there being at least half a dozen, both national and local. Some retailers, however, have expressed annoyance to me on occasions, as some of them sell certain new goods in semi-direct competition (items like cards, flowers and branded goods). When I have pointed out that competition is healthy, they generally grouse that the shops don’t pay business rates so their cost base is much lower. (They don’t have to pay most of the assistants either as they are volunteers but the retailers don’t have an answer for that).

Shopping in charity shops is normally a benign experience but I have noticed two trends that I don’t really like. The first one is social- shoplifting seems to be a problem in charity shops as well as everywhere else and many of the changing rooms have implemented systems for tracking the number of items in and out. (All shoplifting is wrong of course but robbing a charitable concern seems particularly low, it is not as though the prices are high, except in perhaps Harrogate).

The other one is the in your face approach some charities seem to adopt to fund raising and campaigning. Many of the shops were actively encouraging Gift Aid and I hate to think what army of volunteers and Civil Servants are kept busy validating my 99p video.

I recently joined Diabetes UK and the week after I sent off a cheque for £400 in fund raising I was called by a “TeleChugger” (made up word, but it fits the bill) who tried very hard to persuade me to sign up to small ongoing Direct Debit payments. I’m made of sterner stuff to get suckered by cold callers but I imagine lots of people would feel pressurised into agreeing to it as a few quid a month doesn’t sound much and after all, they are a charidee…

Britain used to have a great tradition of charitable giving from all social levels (most of the NHS started off as charitable organisations) but the Welfare State kicked the soul out of it. We still have some outstanding organisations like the RNLI who still do what they say on the tin, but some others seem more intent on getting money from the Government for their work or indeed campaigning at the trough of state influence through the relentless process of scope creep from the founding fathers’ visions.

Speaking of Scope (with a capital S, formerly the Spastic Society), their shop had huge posters about their “Time to get equal” campaign, which I think has actually been and gone, at least the week of action has. It also had many signs decrying something they call disablism. (I had to look it up, I’d not heard of it before). Something felt not right about this, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Getting my head round it afterwards with a trawl around on the web pulled up a good article by Tom Shakespeare on the BBC Disability website- Ouch! which voiced and reflected my concerns. The campaign actually makes much more interesting reading than the hectoring tone of the shop slogans. Maybe it is because we are British- we don’t want our Churches making a fuss, and perhaps we don’t like our charities doing it either! Is polite indifference no longer acceptable, do we have to care about everything?

There are a massive number of different disabilities and no one person can realistically grasp the specific needs that an individual has without making assumptions, frequently wrong ones! The person who I knew the best with a serious disability was my Father who was mostly wheelchair bound in the last five years of his life. he was, however, strongly against compulsion in the need to make everywhere retrospectively “disabled friendly”, regarding it as a socialist plot to put small businesses out of business and get everyone working in the public sector. (He had seen Reds in the Bed everywhere throughout my formative years!) I have always had the view that it makes good business sense to make any enterprise as accessible as possible to customers and that people should be hired for what they can do, not what they are.
The only type of “ism” I approve of has the word “individual” in front of it…

Bradford STIR was a four day event taking place this weekend and we briefly touched on it in our travels. As we passed through the main square, a silent rave was taking place, people dancing to apparently nothing.
They all had headphones and were listening to BCB Radio, the music being mixed from the milk float in front of the town hall.

A number of these strange structures were scattered around. They had been a former art installation along the length of the M62 at motorway service stations. Visitors could write a message onto thin metal sheet and tie them on with a ribbon to form a shrine to anything anyone wanted it to be. This one was near a number of art stands near the former police station where lots of interesting works were on display and could be bought.

Lots of curious things were going on in the St. Georges Hall scattered all round the building. The event was called 12 squared and it was to turn into a Gig in the evening. I snapped a shot of the ceiling on long exposure under various wiggly lights. (It might have been an installation, but it looked pretty standard fare to me, not doing anything particularly innovative)

In the Circle Bar, I found Being 747 performing Amoeba TO Zebra. It was too loud for David so I didn’t have time to work out if it was good, clever or just cak. (The introductory video & spiel sounded a bit pretentious but it could have been irony, they seem to get good reviews).
Meanwhile, the hug the Odeon event has been airbrushed from history, all the chalked messages of support have been painted out. All of the canopies have been cut off and the large signograph structure has also been dismantled. (Good job really, it was becoming a hazard). The building is now revealed looking what it was when it opened, other than that doorway cut in below the upper windows so the projectionists could change the fluorescent tubes. There is a bit of a tide mark, though!