The Bicycle Diaries, Chapter 2, Wheel Of Misfortune.

 

Poor Old Horse.

It is raining again today, so I will not be going anywhere. Yesterday was a nice sunny, but cold day. I decided to go out for a bike ride. Little did I realise what lay in store. It all went well at first. I headed along the road towards Trowbridge and turned right up Capps Lane. I was out in the countryside. I saw a pheasant in a field and stopped to take a photo. Finally, I reached the village of Bratton and had a look around. There are some nice Tudor houses and thatched cottages. At the Duke pub which is sadly closed due to the pandemic I stopped to take a photo of two large whale bones which stand at the entrance to the garden. They have been there about a hundred years.

Broken chain.

 It was when I headed down the Lower   Westbury Road that disaster struck.   Suddenly the pedals would not go round. I   thought I might be stuck between gears   and pressed really hard. I heard a clunk,   looked down and found that the chain had   broken. There was nothing for it but to   push my bike back to Westbury. Luckily, I   was only two miles from home when it   happened. I quite enjoyed the walk back.   There were lots of hang gliders to observe   above the White Horse. I took a photo of the sun which was really dazzling in the November sky. I noticed that the White Horse is looking a bit shabby. It could do with a good clean in the Springtime. Finally,I reached Westbury and was able to freewheel down Alfred Street to reach home.  To encourage people to cycle more and help save the environment there is a government scheme where you can apply for a £50 voucher to have old bicycles repaired. When I looked on the website, all the vouchers had been allocated for the time being. I will have to find somewhere that does bike repairs. I do not think there is a bike repair shop in Westbury. I will have to think of something. In the meantime, it will be Shanks pony for me (walking). Could this be the end of the bicycle diaries?. We shall see.

November sun.

A Strange Encounter.

 

My bird table.

I ran out of bird food yesterday. Looking out of the kitchen window I could see my sparrows arriving at the bird table and there was nothing there for them. I felt sorry for the little blighters, but I did not want to go out for just one item. Then I remembered that I had two bird feeders hanging up that the birds were not using. One of them I had hung on a tree down by my pond and the other one I had just hung on the fence near the compost bin. It was only about two feet off the ground. I decided to empty that one onto the bird table. When I went to take it apart though, I got the shock of my life. Inside the bird feeder, sitting on top of the suet pellets was a tiny little mouse. It must have somehow clambered up the fence and crawled in the hole at the bottom where the birds are supposed to feed from. Once inside, he must have thought, “This is a nice pad”, and moved in. I expect it was nice and warm in there for a wee timorous beastie. I wish I had taken a photo of him to show you, but I did not think at the time. Anyway, I took the feeder apart and he took his chance and jumped out and ran off into the undergrowth. “Cheerio mate, good luck”, I thought.

That was the most exciting thing that has happened for days. It is another grey bleak day here. Every day just merges into the next. I am listening to Charlie Parker at the moment because I have decided that this is Jazz week. I just ordered a CD by Charles Mingus called The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady.  I read that it is one of the greatest jazz albums ever made. I will tell you all about it when it arrives. I cannot think of anything else to tell you about now. Cheerio.

Brilliant Corners.

Thelonious Monk & Charlie Parker. New York 1952. The person at the table smoking a cigarette looks like Jack Kerouac.

It is Sunday afternoon. I had to go out this morning because I had run out of provisions. I got a great big bag of groceries in Morrison’s and scurried home. It is noticeably colder today. I fed my birds and my fish and got in the warmth of the kitchen. I will not need to go out again for a while if the weather is bad. Whilst pottering about and doing about four days’ worth of washing up I have been listening to Brilliant Corners by Thelonious Monk which arrived yesterday. I played it for the first-time last night. I had been meaning to get a Monk album for a while to add to my small but growing collection of jazz albums. An old friend of mine is a big fan of Monk, so I wanted to hear him. Also, I like the name and his personality intrigued me. I read that he was a friend of Allen Ginsberg and I like anything Beat. When I saw a photo of Monk performing with Charlie Parker and saw a figure in the audience who looks like Jack Kerouac, that did it for me. I ordered Brilliant Corners because I read that Brilliant Corners and Misterioso were the pinnacle of his artistic achievement.

The album was released in 1957 on the Riverside label. It features Monk on piano, Ernie Henry & Sonny Rollins on saxophones, Oscar Pettiford on bass and Max Roach on drums. The opening title track is an extraordinarily complex affair which took 25 takes to record and even then the producer had to splice the finished recording together from various takes. I am not a great fan of drum solos and that sort of thing, but on this album I love the tasteful drumming of Max Roach. I think I heard Ginger Baker say that he was one of his favourite drummers. The second track is called Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues -Are which takes its name from Monk’s exaggerated pronunciation of Blue Bolivar Blues. Monk’s friend Pannonica De Konigswater lived at the Bolivar Hotel where she gave Monk somewhere to live. Despite her exotic name she was actually a British aristocratic jazz fan, a member of the Rothschild family. I think I can detect a slight influence of Monk on the playing of Georgie Fame on this track. 

Pannonica.

The third track Pannonica is one of Monk’s most popular tunes and I think it is my favourite from this album as well. He plays a type of piano called a celeste on this track. I surrender Dear is not an original composition. It was written by Harry Barris and was originally a song which Bing Crosby recorded in 1931.It is a solo performance of just Monk and his piano. Bemsha Swing is the final track and written in collaboration with Denzil Best. Paul Chambers plays bass and Clark Terry features on trumpet. For me the highlight of this track is the drumming of Max Roach. I read that it was listening to this track that persuaded Monk’s son Toots Monk to become a jazz drummer.

I must say I have enjoyed listening to this great album on a cold November Sunday afternoon and I will definitely be getting some more jazz music soon. Maybe Charles Mingus next time. There is a documentary about Ronnie Scott’s club on the telly tonight which I am also looking forward to seeing. See you later.