All Our Yesterdays

 My mother was watching The Six-Five Special- a film version of the TV show that was the BBC's first attempt to engage with youth culture. Lonnie Donegan was in the line up- and I have fond memories of Lonnie Donegan- so I sat down and watched it with her.

The year was 1958- and the musical culture of the United Kingdom was doing its not very interesting thing in the shadow of Vesuvius. Pet Clarke had a slot- an English rose before she became a French chanteuse. Jim Dale had a slot- a perky popster before he became an accomplished light comedian. Dickie Valentine sauntered down a staircase wearing boater and blazer, singing something execrable. Various people who never became famous sang songs that never had any hope of becoming classic. Only Donegan seemed aware of what was coming- rendering old Woody Guthrie numbers as driving rock and roll.

Glastonbury isn't happening this year- so the BBC is showing clips from the archives. Last night was like a documentary of everything that came after the Six-Five Special- and popular music moved from the edges to the centre of the culture. We had Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones, Brian Wilson, Paul Simon, James Brown, Al Green, Dolly Parton, Ray Davies, REM and Lady Gaga. Michael Eavis-  both ancient and ageless- sat in an  empty field with the skeleton of the pyramid stage behind him and told Lauren Laverne and Clara Amfo how it's been getting better every year (this would have been the 50th) and 2021 will be even more extraordinary...

State Of The Nation

 We bought the Sunday Mail because of Alice's article. I see it's still in a terrible twit about everything that's happened since our grandparent's day.

Talking about grandparents, it includes a photo feature in which elderly establishment women are reminded of the indiscretions they committed when undergraduates- and attended parties thrown by the Piers Gaveston Society. One of them was snapped in fancy dress talking to Hugh Grant- the horror! the horror!

The front page story is about the PM being fit as a butcher's dog. In the course of being interviewed he makes the claim that he's "more Woking than woke"- Woking (a town in Surrey) being a code word for  timid, unthinking and suburban- which is- like so much of what comes out of his mouth- an untruth. Theresa May was more Woking than woke, but Johnson is a rakish adventurer- the sort of person the good people of Woking would twitch their net curtains at if he lived on their street (which of course he doesn't.) 

Moving away from the Mail, but staying with Johnson, the Cummings agenda still seems to be on track. Cummings has weathered the storm over his trip to Barnard Castle, won his tussle with the Civil Service and prised Mark Sedwill out of his winkle shell. Sedwill is- according to your political stance- either an enlightened internationalist or the presiding genius of the Circumlocution Office- but I no longer expect very much from government- (if we want stuff done we need to do it ourselves)- so I'm not coming down on either side- though I do always like it when the dovecots are fluttered...