Ouse Valley Singles Club

This was the comedy highlight of the year. I joined Short Sleeve Steve on his pilgrimage to see 'the Fall' at the Lunar festival in the home of Nick Drake, Tanworth in Arden.  There was a stage with my name on it,'The Bimblers Inn'. I was later to share a pint with two musclemen with shining teeth from Geordie Shore but in preparation these skifflers raised a titter in an oooer missus way.

Things to do before you die...

The Miniaturist - Jesse Burton

Which novels evoke a sense of the city in which they are set?  Ian Rankin brings Edinburgh to life and a recent visit makes me want to re-discover them now that I have an improved idea of the topography.  Oxford is 'Morse' and Philip Pullman’s 'Northern Lights' and Cornwall, for me, is the 'Gull on the Roof', memoirs of Derek Tangye’s Penwith escape.  Arguably Birmingham is yet to find its voice but we sort of have Shakespeare.

This debut novel is exquisitely crafted,  constructed as intricately as the miniatures which slowly fill the doll’s house in the Amsterdam townhouse of Johannes Brandt. The dollhouse is a gift for his 18 year old bride Nella Oortman. As the secrets reveal an atmosphere as foggy as the canal streets the novel builds to create a sense of 16^th Century Amsterdam and the bustle of the city with its traders and merchants. Perhaps it is because it is a debut that such effort is made to piece the novel together so that the house becomes a metaphor for the novel itself, exquisitely crafted with each character revealing themselves as we become more familiar with their role in the cabinet of curiosities. On the bestseller list for months and justifiably so, a novel which makes one wonder at the skill of the author. The best books are the ones which leave one thinking I could never do that. So I suppose that word I am looking for is 'awesome.' 

Benjamin Clementine

Art is informed by life experiences and Clementine's stories and music are mesmeric.  Alone in a box of frogs or something as mad as.  One can imagine him busking in the Paris metro but the romantic figure of a drifting busker masks the harsh reality of this lifestyle. Holed up in hostels with other drifters sounds like the loneliest place to be.  Now he has made the big time we can all be thankful he can have Xmas in a London villa with a grand piano and flowing garments, long fingers pulling out some Nina inspired classics. The Mercury prize is a good way of recognising talent and I hope he does well.  He could even write some of the great classics.
I had a friend he reminds me of in Santa Cruz, a 6 foot 7 guy who had taken a vow of silence in Cook County jail when authorities forcefully had his dreads cut off. He told me about living in heating ducts on the top of buildings in San Francisco and how he nearly died when one of those fans started whirring.  He used to sleep in my garden on an outdoor sofa, unwilling to sleep in the house as it wasn’t under the stars.  He borrowed my typewriter when I was at College to write his poems and when he asked to print them there were 700 pages.  He walked round Santa Cruz banging his drum singing, 'I want to live in Africa put my feet in the Nile, want to live in London to see if they are more civilized'  

Anyway Benjamin provided the most uplifting moment of the musical year with his acceptance speech.  Days after the Paris massacre he summed it all up with …silence.  Sometimes words are not enough.

And I hope he put that dry stone wall back together..

Happy New Year from A Bimbler

A bimble

A bumbler is different to a bimbler.  The bimbler will have some sense of direction but like Ethan Hunt, if he knew where he was going he wouldn’t be on holiday. The bimbler will idle and enjoy the thrill of the new. A film seen twice or a book re-read is time wasted on a possible new experience so the bimbler seeks new tracks and revels in the unexpected.  There is a plan but the best road is the one least taken preferably at the last minute after a quick look at the map.

Some people are hedgehogs and know their world intimately, returning to old paths. When the need arises they will curl up into a defensive position using their spikes of knowledge to deflect the less worldly.  The fox lives by its wits and searches out new adventures.  The bimbler likes to think he is a fox but he lacks the cunning and hopefully the vicious bite and the snarling lip. Conflict is to be avoided and this is the primary rule, the route is the one of least resistance.

Maps are nectar to the bimbler. They open up the possibilities and hold the promise of new adventures. Weeks could be spent happily exploring one ordnance survey map, tracing each footpath and identifying points of interest.  But once the well has dried that's it! Time to move on. 

The problem is that a bimbler is not a completer. Things are started and plans are made, then abandoned…he takes lots of pictures, has lots of ideas and none will come to fruition. The bimbler's family will say that their favourite expression is they ‘cannot be arsed’ and ask if he suffers from inertia.  His defensive reactions will be made to avoid conflict and criticism. Which makes the writing of a blog about bumbling difficult as one has to put themselves out there and to indulge the slings and arrow of fortune, cast adrift at the mercy of the critics and the snipers.  But if you don’t do it you will never know. Can a bimbler write effectively enough to entertain an audience? Can they keep their attention until the bottom of the page?  In fact can they be arsed to write 'til the bottom of the page. A bimbler is plagued by doubts which often means they keep their thoughts to themselves which is not always a bad idea. But our doubts are traitors and should be overcome as they make us fear to attempt.

The bimbler does lots of things and none of them well. Car maintenance, house improvement, gardening is OK if it involves destruction.  This leads to unnecessary expense due to cack handedness. If he were a tradesman he would work for Bodget and Scarper. 

Bee-keeping is his ideal job as it makes him look like an expert when really the bees are doing all the work.  The basics were picked up along the way with a Grandfather with eighty years of knowledge.  A need to join the club backfired as the bimbler cannot commit. Clubs are not his thing.   The novelty wears off as the idea of waiting for everyone and doing what others want to do loses its appeal. After 30 years of trying to be a social human being it is time to bimble aimlessly.   

Anyway, the idea is that I bimble around and post for posterity.  Mainly wanderings in beautiful or interesting places much like the flaneur or psychogeographer the bumbler aspires to be. If he could only be arsed. 

TBC