Happy Bloomsday.

A friend of mine in Ireland kindly sent me a postcard from Charlie Byrne’s bookshop in Galway. The card shows the shop window decked out with a James Joyce display to commemorate Bloomsday which is today June 16^th. It reminded me that I ought to write a little piece for Bloomsday myself. In the Van Morrison fan groups we had a friend called Birgit from Berlin who loved all things Irish and always remembered Bloomsday, So I would like to dedicate this little effort in memory of Birgit. 

Bloomsday is always held on June 16^th because that was the date in 1904 when the events of James Joyce’s masterpiece novel Ulysses take place. It is called Bloomsday after the protagonist in the novel called Leopold Bloom. There is a Bloom's Hotel in Dublin. Me and Kim stayed there many years ago. Joyce chose June 16th 1904 because it was on that day that he first went out with his future wife Nora Barnacle. Six years ago, when I was in Dublin, I went in a bookshop which was one of the locations visited by Leopold Bloom in Ulysses. In 1904 it was a pharmacy called Sweny’s where Bloom bought some lemony soap. I bought a print of Joyce in the shop as a souvenir of Dublin, had it framed and hung it on a wall at home..It was memorable for me because every afternoon they have a Joyce reading in the shop. I listened for a while, and they asked me if I would like to read a bit. I declined because I have a phobia about reading in public. I thought it was a great little shop though, and very nice people working there.

I am not a Joyce expert by any means. I have read Dubliners and Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man and attempted Ulysses. I haven’t even attempted to start Finnegan’s Wake. One thing I am quite proud of though is that my family owned a pub in County Mayo called Joyce’s. There are a lot of Joyces in Mayo and Galway. It is known as ‘Joyce Country’, so I like to think I have a connection to James Joyce. Another small link is that my surname is Corley. In his book Dubliners Joyce wrote a story called Two Gallants in which one of the protagonists is called Corley, I would love to know why he chose that name.

Kim, Me, & James Joyce.

The first Bloomsday was held in 1954 on the 50th anniversary of the fictional events, when the writers and poets Brian O’Nolan (Flann O’Brien), Anthony Cronin, and Patrick Kavanagh, along with artist John Ryan, James Joyce’s cousin Tom Joyce and lecturer A.J. Leventhal decided to have a pilgrimage to all the locations mentioned in the book. They set off in two horse-drawn cabs of the type Bloom would have used. The first port of call was the Martello Tower at Sandycove which is where the book begins. The day descended into drunken chaos and arguing, they didn’t visit most of the intended locations and finally abandoned the day in the Bailey pub. That was bound to happen with the likes of Brian O’Nolan and Patrick Kavanagh involved. John Ryan shot some amateur footage of that historic day. I have shared it to this page if you want to see it.

First Bloomsday 1954.

They had planted a seed, and Bloomsday has grown over the years into a huge event. Because of Covid a lot of the activities are online this year. If you google Bloomsday Festival 2021 you can see what is on offer. If you are lucky enough to be in Dublin there are walking tours and other events you can join. I can’t think of anything else to say about Bloomsday now, except Happy Bloomsday !

PS, I took my friend's postcard from Charlie Byrne's Bookshop round to the pub and put it on the wall in Curly's Corner next to a card my brother Paul sent me from Shakespeare & Company's Bookshop in Paris. They go together because it was Shakespeare & Company who first published Ulysses in 1922. Paul's card shows the poet and owner of City Lights Bookshop Lawrence Ferlinghetti with the owner of Shakespeare & Co George Whitman..

The First Bloomsday June 16, 1954

Puddles & Rainbows by Padraig Stevens.

Sunday afternoon, a glorious hot summer’s day. I feel quite pleased with myself because this morning I made the supreme effort and brought the hosepipe through the house and out the front door and washed the pollution from the road off the front of my house. It looks a lot brighter and cleaner now. I will try and do it every Sunday from now on. I am now sitting in the cool of my kitchen listening to a CD that I bought in a charity shop yesterday afternoon. It is called Puddles & Rainbows by Padraig Stevens. I actually briefly met Padraig over twenty years ago. There was a time in the late 90s & early 2000s when The Saw Doctors were almost my favourite band. Kim & I saw them several times, mostly at festivals, but also a memorable concert at the Royal Albert Hall when all the Galway football team came on stage with the Sam Maguire trophy which they had just won. 

One night we went to see the Saw Doctors at the venue in Bristol now renamed The Bristol Beacon. During the interval we went outside for a cigarette and had a few words with a man who had the same idea. It was only later in the evening that I realised it was Padraig Stevens. I knew him best for writing The Tuam Beat for the band and I was reminded of him a few years ago when Christy Moore recorded a great version of that song on his album Lily. Anyway, this CD was released in 2004. I thought I might like one or two songs, but I am pleased to say that I love the whole album. When I read the sleeve notes I recognised several of the musicians. As well as Leo Moran, Davy Carton and Anthony Thistlewaite who I know from The Saw Doctors I was also pleased to see that Jimmy Higgins who I have got to know through his work with Christy is a major player on this album. 

The Streets Of Galway is a delightful catchy song to open the album, with a great sax break by Anthony. Ireland For The Summer is also a wonderful song. It makes you want to pack your bags right now and get over to Ireland. The Irish Tourist Board should use it in their commercials. Jimmy Fitzgerald excels on guitars. Good Girl Delia is a humorous cheerful song which develops into a hornpipe called Pocai Folamita composed by Jim Stevens who I assume is Padraig’s brother. Breda Smyth and Jimmy Higgins are brilliant on whistle & Bodhran. Waiting For The Swallows is a beautiful evocative song featuring Aine Ni Shioradain on harp and Olivia Donnellan on accordion. The Galway Races is played at the rhythm of a horse race and gets faster and faster towards the finishing line. It features the noise of the crowd during the Galway Plate of 2002. Bring It All Your Love is a moving ballad in which Padraig is helped out on vocals by Sarah Keating and Sarah Jane Burke, and Nuala Ni Channain on fiddle. Still The Only One features Leo Moran playing guitar on this great love song. Musha Raftery is an outstanding atmospheric track with just Padraig, Mairtin O’Connor accordion and Brendan O’Regan bouzouki. I’m not sure what it is about, some of the words are in Irish, but I do know that Raftery was the name of a blind Irish poet who came from my mother’s hometown of Kiltimagh in County Mayo. That might not be the Raftery that Padraig is referring to though. 

A Punt, A Punt is a very funny song about money, loosely based on Seven Drunken Nights by The Dubliners. Jimmy plays no less than six percussion instruments on this song. Constant Heart could easily be a Saw Doctors song because it has the great sound of Leo & Davy on guitars. Gone, Long Gone is a melancholy love song with Mouse McHugh on vocals and Derek Murray keyboards. It’s The Life (Maybe) is a nice optimistic song which brings this most enjoyable album to a close. Well done Padraig Stevens and everyone else who worked on this project. Sorry it took me 17 years to discover this album, but I am very pleased I finally found it yesterday afternoon.

Van Morrison In Brighton 2014.

This is a little story about one incident in 2014. I caught the 11.04 train from Westbury on Monday, grateful that the trains were running after all the terrible floods and storms of the previous week, changed trains at Southampton and arrived in Brighton about 2.00 and walked to my hotel the Hilton Metropole on the seafront. I had chosen this hotel because it was at this very hotel in the summer of 75 that I had the shortest job of my life. I had started work as a kitchen porter at 11.30 and walked out at 12.15. I bet they didn't think I would return in triumph 39 years later. After I got settled in I went for a bit of a stroll and had something to eat in Yates's and then took a slow walk to the Lord Nelson Pub in Trafalgar Street where I met Othmar and Daria from Switzerland, Marion from The Netherlands, Julia from Marsailles, Miquel and Tony from  Spain, Simon and Sandra, and Nosey. The time flew by and we made our way to Brighton Dome.
         

I took my seat in the circle and Van's daughter Shana came on first with the band minus the brass section to start the evening. She looked great as always and sang three songs, God Must Love Me, Serve Me Right To Suffer and Higher And Higher  which I really enjoyed. Then it was time for the Celtic soul brother himself to walk on stage with the now familiar opening of Celtic Swing followed by Close Enough For Jazz. This was followed by Back On Top which I think I enjoyed more than at Bristol. Then it was one of the first highlights of the evening for me, So Quiet In Here. It was great and I liked Shana's backing vocals and the brass section of Chris and Alistair White were really good as well. This was followed by Rough God Goes Riding, which was also great but I was beginning to realise that this was almost exactly the same set as in Bristol. I wanted to hear something different. Van ended the song by doing his Clint Eastwood impression again which was funny the first time I heard it. He is trying to get away from his grumpy image. Following this was Keeping Mediocrity At Bay   which is not a favourite album track but I think performed live it isn't bad at all. Benediction, by Van's friend Mose Allison was next which was ok, but the gig for me was getting a bit 'samey' now. Van sat on the stool next for Keep It Simple which is one of the best songs of recent years. Then it was the excellent Queen Of The Slipstream.

                                                                                                                                  Van said, "Now I'd like to bring on my old china plate (Cockney rhyming slang for mate) Chris Farlowe", and he and Van sang Early In The Morning, Hoochie Coochie Man,and Stormy Monday which Chris had recorded under the name Little Joe Cook back in the 60's. Not my favourite part of the show. Dave Keary's guitar playing was good though. Sometimes We Cry  with Shana was next followed by Whenever God Shines His Light and Days Like This. Then the new arrangement of Brown Eyed Girl which is replacing Moondance as the song where all the band get to play a solo. Baby Please Don't Go was brilliant followed by the eternal Help Me. Then Chris returned for Gloria/Who Do You Love and finally Stand By Me. I was disappointed that apart from the Farlowe numbers there hadn't been a single different song to Bristol, but I was determined to make tonight special one way or another.

                                                                                                                                  Before the band had finished playing I made a bee-line for the door and turned left and left again and made my way to the stage door. There was a Mercedes parked outside and a man holding an umbrella. I knew he was waiting for Van. I stood against the wall and waited ten minutes in the rain. Then the door opened and out came Van with his assistant. I stepped up and handed him my moleskine notebook and my sad little pen that I had got in the bookies a few days earlier and said, "Could I have a quick autograph please Van?". As he scrawled his name I said, "Thank you very much Van, I’ve been a fan for 40 years", "That long huh?", said Van and smiled at me and gave me back my book and bookies pen and got in the car. A couple who were standing there applauded and he was gone... It didn't matter about the bit of ink on a page, that was just the excuse. What mattered was that for just a few fleeting seconds I had connected with the person whose music has meant so much to me for so long. I wished Kim had been there to witness it, she would have been thrilled. It was the highlight of my Van fan career. To quote Van himself I was 'Higher Than The World'. I'll never bother him again. I ran back to the front of the hall to show my friends the autograph. A gang of us retired to a nearby pub for a drink and I tried to calm down. The End.

                                                                                                                                                                                

Van Morrison, 28 Years Too Long In Exile

God it's hot today. I was sitting outside in the yard, but I have come indoors for the coolness. Talking about cool, I am listening to Too Long In Exile by Van Morrison because I saw on a Van Facebook group page that it was released 28 years ago today on June 8th 1993. I  remember clearly a show Van did about a month or two later at Lydiard Park near Swindon, only a stones throw from Van's house at the time in the village of Little Somerton. I think that was only the first or second ever gig since Brian Kennedy joined the band. Brian sang some songs with Van, then one of his own called Captured which was excellent. This was one of the great 'lost' Van concerts because I don't think a tape exists of it. You could just walk up to the front and stand just a few feet away from Van and dig the music. That's why I loved those outdoor Van gigs in the summertime in England when Van cuts loose and blows a fuse around the regions again. I did notice a change that night in Van's audience which was less of the hippy types and more of the Radio 2 chattering classes and this was to get worse as the years went by. That particular night if my memory serves me well Van opened with the title track from the new album and  Ball And Chain and later Lonely Avenue. These songs are all great. To get to the actual album, it starts really promisingly with Too Long In Exile which has a relentless beat, great harmonica and mentions some of the Irish heroes such as Georgie Best, Alex Hurricane Higgins and Samuel Beckett. Then one of Van's better moaning songs which recall his years at Bang records Big Time Operators. What do you expect when you sign to a company called Bang? Ball And Chain is great, and then a nice version of Lonely Avenue.

To my ears In The Forest is a similar song to Orangefield, and Till We Get The Healing Done is an attempt to recapture former glories of Van's spiritual quest, but Van was reaching the end of the road in that search for the time being and was just forcing the issue here. The two tracks with his friend John Lee Hooker are not very good. Gloria is not a patch on the original, so I think they could have chosen different songs. Van should have done a whole official album with John Lee which might have been a classic. I love their version of I Cover The Waterfront.  The outstanding track on this uneven album is Before The World Was Made in which Van turns a great poem by W.B. Yeats into a wonderful song. I love this song which seems to be more at home on the album Now And In Time To Be. a tribute to W.B. Yeats. I think there is some great music on this album, but it lacks consistency of mood, and doesn't seem to know where it wants to go. It is a mish-mash of different styles. Everyone has their own opinion though on albums. Some people might think it is one of Van's best, and they are entitled to that view.

Unofficial Album.

The End Of An Era.

Monday morning. I ought to try and write something in the mornings because if I leave it until the evening, I tend not to bother. So, what have I been doing lately? Not a lot really. On Saturday I went over to Warminster. I thought I would treat myself to a new CD because I like to support my local record shop when I can. It is called Raves From The Grave because as well as new releases they also sold rare collectible vinyl. “Have you got the new album by Marianne Faithfull?”, I asked the lady behind the counter. “No, we haven’t got anything new I’m afraid, this is our last day today, we are closing”. That was sad news, the end of an era. It is inevitable I suppose. All the interesting little shops are gradually disappearing. It is the effect of online shopping and maybe Covid was the final straw. In a few years’ time I think all music shops will have closed. When I look back, I remember the hours I used to spend happily browsing in record shops until I made my choice of what to buy. Anyway, I had a look through what stock they had remaining, but couldn’t find anything I wanted, so left the shop empty handed and went to Spoons to meet Sian.

I don’t even like Wetherspoons. The owner of the Wetherspoons chain Tim Martin is a pro-Brexiter and they even used to have pro Brexit leaflets on the tables in there. He treated the staff appallingly during lockdown, telling them to try their luck at Tesco’s. Now, he is asking Boris Johnson to allow more workers from Europe into the country because he is facing staff shortages. The irony of it!  Anyway, Sian doesn’t care about that, and also because other pubs like The Bell have closed down due to Spoons undercutting the prices, there isn’t a lot of choice in the centre of Warminster. That is why I met her in there. Previously I used to get her to take my photo with whatever CD I had bought, to illustrate my subsequent review. Today, I sadly had nothing to photograph, but I got her to take my photo anyway.

I did leave her for a few minutes while I had a had a quick buzz around the charity shops. I found one little bargain for only £1.00 which was Hoochie Coochie Man, The Chess Story. It is a 2CD set of 50 original recordings on the Chess label, by such people as Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, Howling Wolf, Etta James, Little Walter, Memphis Slim, Big Bill Broonzy and many more. I played it when I got home and love it. I bet Van Morrison would enjoy this album because a lot of these people were a big influence on Van, and I only discovered a lot of them because of Van talking about them in interviews. That is just one of the great things about Van, he leads you discover other great music.  So, although it was disappointing that the record shop has closed, it wasn’t such a bad day after all. 

Visiting The Graves Of Thomas Hardy & T.E Lawrence.

It was a nice day yesterday, so me and a friend of mine decided to go exploring. I thought it would be interesting to see if we could find the graves of some more famous people. We headed for the tiny village of Stinsford on the outskirts of Dorchester where I heard the heart of the great writer Thomas Hardy was buried. It did not take long to get there as Dorchester is only 53 miles south of Westbury. I will just tell you a grisly story I read about the heart of Thomas Hardy. It was his wish to be buried in the churchyard at Stinsford because that was the church in which he was baptised in 1840. His first wife Emma was already buried there. 

Under The Greenwood Tree.

Hardy lived at nearby Max Gate with his second wife Florence where he died in 1928. Because of his great novels, Far From The Madding Crowd, Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Jude The Obscure, The Mayor Of Casterbridge and many more, as well as his poetry, his reputation was almost as great as Charles Dickens. The nation felt that he should be buried in Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey. A compromise was reached to keep everybody happy. His heart would be removed and buried at Stinsford and then he would be cremated, and his ashes interred in Westminster Abbey. 

Hardy's window.

This is where we get to the macabre bit. A doctor was called to his house where his body lay, and he performed the quite simple operation of removing the heart which was placed in a dish in the room. Mrs Hardy offered the doctor a glass of sherry in gratitude, and they retired to the drawing room for a few minutes to talk. Now, Thomas Hardy had a favourite cat called Cobby who entered the empty room where Hardy lay, discovered his heart, and promptly ate most of it. Minutes later Mrs Hardy found the horrific scene. The story goes that the cat was immediately destroyed and allegedly was buried in the churchyard. It is said that many people remarked on the sudden disappearance of Cobby after Hardy’s death.

C Day-Lewis

My personal view is the story is a myth that was probably invented in a Dorchester tavern one night and the story spread. There is one thing that I find strange though. During my research I found some footage of the internment of Hardy’s heart. (I have shared it to this blog page if you want to see it) A man’s heart is roughly the size of a large apple, it would easily fit in a box about four inches square. The casket the priest is carrying to the grave is large enough to contain a cat!. Why put his heart in a box that big? It makes one wonder. Anyway, We found the picturesque little church at Stinsford quite easily and it only took about two minutes to locate the grave which was in between those of Emma and Florence. They lie there peacefully in the shade of an old tree. I wonder if it is the tree referred to in his novel Under The Greenwood Tree because that book is set in the village of Mellstock which was Hardy’s fictionalisation of Stinsford. The tree would definitely have been there during his lifetime. Inside the church we found an amazing stained glass window memorial to Hardy. Also, just a few yards away from Hardy we found the last resting place of Cecil Day-Lewis who was the Poet Laureate from 1968 until his death in 1972. He was also the father of the great actor Daniel Day-Lewis. He was a great admirer of Thomas Hardy and it was his request to be buried in the same place.

Me & T.E. Lawrence.

From Stinsford we drove on to the nearby village of Moreton where we found the grave of T.E. Lawrence who many people know better as Lawrence Of Arabia. He was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident near here in 1935. Apparently, there is a roadside memorial marking the spot where he died, but we did not find that. He lived nearby in a tiny cottage called Clouds Hill which his brother donated to the National Trust. Mourners at his funeral in 1935 included Winston Churchill, E. M. Forster and Lady Astor. Next to the quiet plot where Lawrence is buried, we found a walled garden which is a beautiful place with ponds and all kinds of exotic plants and trees and modern sculptures, and a nice café where had a cup of tea. Well worth a visit if you are ever in Moreton.

Approaching Lulworth Cove.

After that we had enough of history and culture for one day and decided to head for Lulworth Cove. The plan was to hopefully find a nice pub or a fish and chip restaurant for a spot of lunch. When we got there though it was apparent that everyone in Britain seemed to have the same idea. Because of the nice weather, school half-term holidays, and the fact that because of Covid nobody goes abroad anymore, the place was jammed. We took one look at the packed carpark and decided to be far from the madding crowd. 

Compton Abbas.

We headed towards home and near Shaftesbury stopped at Compton Abbas airfield. This is a tiny little airfield for light aircraft. It also has a café, so we had a bite to eat while watching the planes landing and taking off which was quite good fun. We finally got back to Westbury by 5.00, in time for a couple of well deserved pints in The Crown. I must say after a year of not going anywhere it is nice to be able to get out again.