Heart Food by Judee Sill.

After the hot weather of the past few days the sky is now grey and rainy. Not to worry, the rain will be good for the garden. I am staying in this afternoon and listening to music. I haven’t written a blog since last Thursday, so I thought I’d tell you what I have been doing. On Friday I had a visitor who called at mid-day, I opened a bottle of wine and then the day descended into an alcoholic haze which is quite rare for me these days.  I resolved to stay off the booze for a few days after that. Sunday was a really nice day apart from hearing on the news about the atrocities in Sri Lanka. I sat outside in my chair all day and read The Remains Of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. I had been meaning to read it for ages and I’m glad that I finally did because it is brilliant. It is about the unrequited love between a butler called Stevens and a house-keeper called Miss Kenton. The author uses the fact that the protagonist is a butler as a metaphor for looking at the whole of society because we are all butlers in a way, when you think about it. Ken Kesey used a similar device when he set One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest in a mental hospital in order to show that the powers that be in society do not like an individual thinking for himself in case he rebels. Anyway, there is a lot of humour in the book as well as pathos and I urge you to read it if you haven’t already done so.

I didn’t go out on Monday either, I didn’t see another living soul all day which suited me fine. I pottered around in the garden with just my robin and blackbird for company and planted a few things such as impatiens, fuchsias, lupins, and osteospurmum (That sounds like a disease, but it is a plant). I watched the final of University Challenge on the telly and retired early on Monday night. Tuesday, I went into Bath again. I bought myself some nice new boots in Clarks on Milsom Street. I will need them for Glastonbury which is only about 70 days away now. Then I had another look in Topping & Company and treated myself to a signed first edition by John Cooper Clarke called The Luckiest Guy Alive. Johnnie Clarke is more than a poet, he is a comedian as well. I met him once, it was at Glastonbury 1982, it’s great that he seems to have had a renaissance in popularity in recent years. I think that might be due to a lot of the younger generation discovering him when he was added to the GCSE syllabus in schools. I started to read the book on the train on the way home and chortled quietly to myself all the way to Westbury.

Today, the postman knocked on my door and handed me a package. It contained a cd called Heart Food by Judee Sill. I am on my first listen at the moment. It is a Japanese import which I didn’t realise when I ordered it, so the booklet of sleeve notes is mainly in Japanese. I remember seeing Judee Sill on The Old Grey Whistle Test in the 1970’s and thinking that she wasn’t a very nice person. She was complaining about being sick of being the support act to rock bands. You shouldn’t judge a person by one statement though. When I ordered the album I thought I would add a review to my never-ending list of obscure female singers. What I have heard so far I like, it sounds quite sophisticated and will probably take a few listens to get into. It was released in 1973 on the Asylum label. I like the opening track There’s A Rugged Road. On some tracks such as The Vigilante there are some touches that remind me a little of The Byrds in the Gram Parsons era. As I say though I haven’t heard it enough to give a valid judgement. I think it turned out to be her last album and she sadly died in 1979. I have put a video of one track called The Pearl below if you want to hear it. It’s stopped raining now. I can’t think of anything else to say. See you later.

Judee Sill.

Haiku by John Cooper Clarke.