Author: Mark

  • Golden Moments

    Golden Moments

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    Golden Moments – Timely Chocolate Promotion

    It’s  Christmas Eve and another year is about to conclude.  It was only the  domain name renewal payment which brought me back to this site.  I have never promoted it and I have enjoyed the anonymity of sharing thoughts with the whole world, yet not sharing them.

    I now feel I would like to use the site differently. Primarily Woodland Decay will focus upon my academic writing, but as a personal site that does not preclude other thoughts and reflections upon our decaying lives.

    The other day somebody pushed something through my  letterbox, I was mildly annoyed imagining  some pointless flyer for some pointless product. But what I found was a single chocolate billed as a golden moment (see photograph), which I am now enjoying.  

    It must have been a marketing  campaign as the guy was posting them through every letterbox, I would have eaten all of them if I was the chocolate postman.  I just loved this simple idea and the pleasure it gave me and others on my road. Just for a moment it pierced the nonsense of everyday life.

    What have been my 2015 golden moments?  I have forgotten most of them, but in the spirit of gratitude here are a few.

    Fish and Chips at the end of the day at a conference.  The day had gone really well presenting three papers and chairing a paper, I skipped the conference dinner and went and watched the boats coming and going, I was happy.

    Growing soft fruit in the garden, it has been my outdoor obsession this year.  I haven’t been great at it, but I have enjoyed mingling theory and practice. I have enjoyed the cycle of nature and the rewards for my labours have been tasty.

    My indoor obsession has been Sid Meier’s RailRoads, its an ancient PC game which completely absorbs me. It is quite manic as you build a railroad from the 1800s onwards, but it calms my head  like nothing else.

    Finally, I have enjoyed academics who I admire getting in touch via the email and just chatting about academic stuff without ever meeting.

    I wish a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my regular readers, I hope you enjoy some golden moments over this festive season. And to my new readers in 2016 I hope that you like (find) the revised site it will make more sense to you and me in 2016!

    Postscript (February 2023)

    I have been spring cleaning woodlanddecay.com posts from years ago. I had forgotten what I had written. I was struck how a renewal payment request prompted me to reengage with this site. I was also touched by my gratitude list made public. It is odd hiding this ‘stuff’ in plain sight as aide memoires in the future.

  • ‘A Curious Life’ – The Levellers – Brighton 26/11/14

    ‘A Curious Life’ – The Levellers – Brighton 26/11/14

    On Wednesday I enjoyed a rare evening excursion to see the new Leveller’s film ‘A Curious Life’.  It was screened at the Duke of York’s  Cinema with the band performing a live set after the screening.  

    I arrived in Brighton in 1987 and The Levellers as a band started in 1988.  In the early years, I saw them a number of times at festivals etc.  Back then there were four bands Crass, Chumbawamba, Conflict and The Levellers.  I tended to follow the first two, but I always enjoyed the Leveller’s performances.

    In the cinema I find myself sandwiched between two couples.  On both sides they engage with me,  which was nice. The whole evening had a wonderful collective reunion feel, really nice vibe.  Most of the audience was middle aged like myself, so we could just about afford the £29.00 ticket price, although it also indicated how far away we have moved from the agit-pop  of the 1980s.

    The film was introduced by Dunstan Bruce the Director and a former member of Chumbawamba.  He was very  humorous and playful and on great form.  I was in the second row, so up  close and personal and looking at Dunstan now middle  aged was like looking in a mirror. We shared the grey hairs and slightly faded look, but both of us also had the peace and contentment that middle age delivers.

    Dunstan  acknowledged that Jeremy featured very  prominently  in the film, describing him humorously as  a ‘camera whore’,  weaving the narrative around Jeremy worked very well.  There was a bit when Jeremy was buying top of the range whiskey,  didn’t seem very revolutionary, but that was the joy of the film. In a pretentious world, it appeared to be a very sincere depiction.  Jeremy’s Mum and Dad feature in the film and attended the screening.  

    I enjoyed the film I am not sure if it was Dunstan’s intention, but it was a feel good movie, plenty of self deprecation and peaceful mischief.  A lovely bit when they wind up Michael Eavis, they seem a bit contrite, but not very contrite, which is a bit of a nice contradiction.

    After a 15 min break the band came on and sat down in front of the screen.  I remember photos of the Velvet Underground in similar mode, so cool – a rock band sitting down. I secured the set list from a friendly roadie, which is at the bottom of this post. I must admit I don’t know their catalogue,  but I enjoyed every tune, no duff songs, everyone connected with an appreciative audience. They seemed to be in a good space with Mark talking between songs.  Fans danced in the aisles and Mark suggested if they wanted to dance in front of the band they needed to ‘knee dance’ and fans did their best to knee dance, it was poetic.

    Set List - The Levellers 26/11/14
    The Levellers Set List 26/11/14

    I have since delved into their back catalogue and enjoyed what I have found, many tracks chiming with my youth.  I also found a video documentary of Dunstan Bruce recounting the Chumbawamba story.   On Wednesday I didn’t get home until 12.40, the latest I have been to bed in years – the revolution starts here, or at the very least tomorrow after I have read the Sunday papers.

    Links

    Chumbawamba Site

    The Levellers Site

  • The Orb live @ The Haunt Brighton (10/10/13)

    The Orb live @ The Haunt Brighton (10/10/13)

    I have seen the Orb live many times, but I couldn’t miss them celebrating their twenty fifth anniversary with a tour and new compilation History of the Future.  I remember hearing them on John Peel as a youngster.  He didn’t play their first  single, but when they retitled it A huge evergrowing pulsating brain that rules from the centre of the ultraworld, he was sold. Its odd when  you grow in parallel to a band, it’s rather nice but also it like this mirror mirroring your own process of ageing.

    They were playing a night club The Haunt, which I hadn’t been to before. It was a dark and grungy club which I rather enjoyed. The atmosphere was really loved  up, everyone smiling just enjoying the moment.  There were people of all ages, but many my age. The band came on stage at 7.50, which was great for us older folks, they did  two hour set which covered their ‘hits’.  The final thirty minutes they created these wonderful dance rhythms and even I found myself dancing it was really infectious. I enjoyed the night reconnecting with parts of myself which had been sleeping for a long time.  As we trooped out of the club at about 10.00 the youngsters were  queueing to go inside.  A wonderful  metaphor for the passage of time.  They don’t know what they missed or perhaps they do?

  • The Dark Stream

    The Dark Stream

    I’ve spent the cold dark months of this winter lost inside the dark stream of Netflix. It’s like the web you browse and they browse. You gravitate towards genres, in my case dark detective stories. These have included Cracker, Waking the Dead, Dexter, Wallender (Lassgard), Wallender (Branagh) and Wallender(Henriksson). It’s odd in that I had a free choice, nobody coerced me, so why this genre? It’s very male, not so much the violence of murder, rather the aftermath of death, over and over again. A search for meaning in this dark existentialism. The detective’s investigation is a side story, in terms of the deeper search for meaning in a meaningless world. In the darker corners you witness a sad nihilism which is almost poetic. In Cracker it’s all about psychology. In Waking the Dead the emphasis is upon forensics. In Dexter it’s serial killinq and blood spatter, juxtaposed with sunny Miami, somehow it makes for a heady cocktail. And then Wallender interpreted by three very different lead actors, each actor interpreting the one author’s vision in slightly different ways, but all conveying a sense of isolation. In Wallender (Lassgard) there is a moment when Wallender asks a detective colleague who has been troubled by a gruesome murder if he needs to talk. The colleague says yes and Wallender hands him the card for a helpline…no one is there.