The Country Life

I live in Manchester, the third biggest city in England and, while I love the place and love city life, I sometimes forget about the rest of the country. Places like Manchester, Liverpool, London and Birmingham are sprawling metropoles, built up and beautiful in their own way.  The city is full of life, with every single activity you can think of resting gloriously at the end of your fingertips. The city is bustling full of people from all walks of life. City dwellers are rarely stuck for something to do.

City life is definitely not boring – that’s why I love it.

Yet there is a part of me that seeks tranquillity and as I get older, I find myself thinking about more serene pastimes and thankfully there are places close by where I can enjoy that side of life too.

Such was the case on my birthday a week or so ago. Mrs PM and I decided to explore an area of England that we had only ever seen through the windows of a car as we drove through it on our way from one city to another.

This time, I wanted to sample country life, the polar opposite of city life.

I have sampled this before, visiting areas like North Wales, the Lake District and the Peak District but I had never visited the Cotswolds, an area in the southern part of the Midlands, that covers six counties. It is located just south of Stratford upon Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare, in the north stretching as far as Bath in the south west and Oxford in the east. The maps below give you some idea of where it is.

I had been to Bath in the south but spent most of the time in the city itself rather than exploring the countryside. We chose the north part of the Cotswolds and a little town called Chipping Campden, with a population of just over 2,000 people situated 135 miles south of Manchester (around two and a half hours in the car).

Our accommodation was provided by a small hotel on the main street, which also doubled up as a pub and restaurant.

The first thing I truly noticed here was how calm, relaxing and peaceful it was. We had arrived fairly late and after the sun went down we went for a short stroll around the small town to get our bearings.

It didn’t take long.

The pubs and restaurants were housed in beautiful buildings made of a honey coloured stone that perfectly illustrated the stereotypical small English country town, complete with thatched cottages.

It was wonderful.

The next day we drove from Chipping Campden for a walk from the even smaller town of Broadway to Broadway Tower, a ramble through the Cotswolds countryside, a distance of around five miles. The weather, for once, didn’t let us down. I was expecting rain but all we had was a typical cloudy and slightly cold day but not one single rain drop ruined our walk.

On the way we saw magnificent views of the English countryside as we climbed to Broadway Tower, the second highest point in the Cotswolds. We stopped for coffee just before we arrived at the tower and listened to a conversation amongst a lively group of pensioners who were walking to keep fit. I was amused because they were all country folk and quite posh, discussing party politics and evangelising about the current Prime Minister and her ministerial appointments in a way that you would never hear on the streets of Manchester.

The view from Broadway Tower itself was wonderful and it wasn’t so high that it would trigger my fear of heights.

After the tower we walked back to Broadway, where we found small shops selling traditional country items, in particular tweed clothing that you would rarely seek in the cities. Moreover, to validate the twee image of the town, some of the people were also dressed like traditional country folk. We even saw a group of Morris dancers.

Later, in the evening, we had a hearty meal in a different pub in Chipping Campden before retiring for the night.

The next day, we enjoyed a full English breakfast served by a waiter who personified the traditional image of an Englishman, complete with polite comments and even a wry smile at one of my jokes, which exposed his true mask after trying to portray himself as formal with a stiff-upper lip.

I almost said “Caught you,” but opted against it after a level one look from Mrs PM.

Later we embarked upon a slightly smaller walk in the countryside surrounding Chipping Campden, passing some very nice and very large houses that probably served as country retreats for rich people living in the Birmingham and South Midland area. We walked past farms, through fields, along country lanes and public footpaths passing other walkers who greeted us with a pleasant “Good morning.”.

It was so peaceful and serene with clean country air, hardly a car in sight and a relaxed gentle atmosphere around the place.

Part of me wanted to stay, to become a member of the country folk and abandon the city forever. When I thought more about this, I realised that deep down I am a city man and I would have to say goodbye to this delightful area of England. The city offers so much more and I would miss that. Yet as I get older, I think I also need to immerse myself in the countryside more, spending weekends away from the hustle and bustle of the city and the hassle of work life. Such trips serve a perfect purpose; to calm me down and make me appreciate fully the country I live in.

Here are some photographs that hopefully give you some idea of what I am talking about.

A cottage in Chipping Campden

Broadway

Broadway Tower 

Just to prove that Broadway Tower is British

Spiral staircase in a turret

Dry stone wall

Strangely carved bushes

Chipping Campden Town Centre

A church in Chipping Campden

A lovely view of English countryside

I hope you like them.

The Poet

I was tempted to call this post Poetry is Rubbish.

The truth is that generally I find what’s known as serious poetry genuinely is rubbish, a sort of pseudo-intellectual bullshit similar to contemporary art.

Contemporary artists use paint, bricks, unmade beds or in some cases absolutely nothing to appeal to pseudo-intellectuals, inspiring them to wax lyrical about what the painting says to them, using quotes from philosophers and basically talking nonsense to make themselves seem to be more clever than the rest of us.

Some poets do exactly the same – but with words instead of weird materials.

When I was at school, my English teacher forced me to write a critical essay comparing two poems about horses. I read them both and didn’t understand a bloody word. I didn’t trust my English teacher, a man who had forced me to read The Mayor of Casterbridge (arguably the worst book I have ever read) and hailed William Shakespeare as a kind of modern genius (read my post Shakespeare is Rubbish  for my thoughts on the bard).

I was tempted to write the shortest critical essay ever:

The poems are both about horses and they are both rubbish.

Instead, I pretended to be a pseudo-intellectual and wrote a load of old horseshit (pardon the pun). Guess what? I got a good grade and that essay helped me to pass my O-Level English Literature. Incidentally, I had to write essays about William Shakespeare’s plays and The Mayor of Casterbridge as well.

My only conclusion is that all you have to do succeed in English Literature is pretend to be a pseudo-intellectual.

I stand by this.

In fact, I once wrote a poem on this very blog. The poem was proof that anybody can devolve into a pseudo-intellectual and, with the aid of a dictionary and thesaurus, can come up with any old rubbish.

Here for your pleasure (or otherwise) that poem entitled The Loquacious Figment:

I contemplated the torso of a despondent galactic masterpiece

And my heart thanked my voracious sight.

I hastened my swiftness, disoriented by my awareness

Yet somehow did not submit to fright.

It’s utter garbage. Don’t let anybody tell you any different. It took me about two minutes to write.

If there is anybody who thinks it is good, then let me know and I will write an entire book filled with this kind of nonsense and – perhaps – make some money out of it.

Yeah right!!!!

Anyway, you are probably wondering why I decided not to call this post Poetry is Rubbish. The truth is that there are poems out there that I actually quite like. These are usually silly limericks, puerile nonsense and, most importantly of all, the works of terrific songwriters.

Songs are simply poems put to music and I have some terrific thought-provoking songs in my collection that can stand alone as poetry.

Here are some examples of silly little limericks:

A stupid young man from Crewe

Once decided to build a canoe.

When out on the river

He found, with a shiver, 

He’d forgot to use waterproof glue

A funny young fellow named Perkins

Was terribly fond of small gherkins.

One day after tea

He ate ninety three

And pickled his internal workings.

I have also written poetry for a couple of friends on their birthdays. Here’s an example (with the names changed to protect the guilty):

A new decade's upon you; it's your 50th today.

The little hair that you have left will soon be turning grey.

You still play squash and cycle, to cling onto your youth.

But soon your muscles will give way, along with every tooth.

And when your gums are toothless (and chewing is a chore)

The only food you'll manage will be sucked up through a straw.

You take your lady dancing (Mimi is her name)

But believe me, waltzing's tricky when you use a zimmer frame.

Your pension is approaching more quickly than you think.

But forget that for the moment - we'll buy you lots of drink

To wish you HAPPY BIRTHDAY and, if I may be so bold,

To make sure you remember, Bill, that you are VERY OLD.

Now I’m over fifty myself, I think that might have hurt.

Moving on to songs, I think that the words can be almost as powerful as the music itself. In some cases, the words actually elevate a song for me. Here are some examples:

Rush – Nobody’s Hero

Dream Theater – The Answer Lies Within

I can only conclude therefore that poetry is not rubbish, only those pretentious poems seemingly auto-generated from a dictionary.

Well, I feel inspired to write another on for you, dear reader. Picture the scene. I have opened my browser and have begun looking for quotes from celebrated philosophers. I am devolving into a pseudo-intellectual.

I am now an arrogant smartarse who is looking down on the world. My inspiration is complete. In the words of Plato:

“The beginning is the most important part of the work”.

I present to you: The Enigmatic Equation:

The imperceptible formula, cloaked in derangement,

Struggles to reveal its worth.

Yet the analyst blindly persists in frustration

Anticipating its Caesarian birth 

What a load of gibberish. I hope you agree.

Over to you, dear reader.

Do you like poetry?

If so, does all of it make sense to you? Am I just being thick?

Do song lyrics inspire you?

Am I Cultured?

The Sunday Times is a huge British newspaper that is published every Sunday (obviously) and takes approximately a month to read. You need to have worked out at the gym for months to be able to carry the bloody thing home.

And when you get home you open it up and it consists of section upon section of news, business, sport, money, fashion and many other subjects.

One of those magazines is a newspaper in its own right called “Culture”.

I always try to read this magazine – mainly because it has details of what is on TV over the coming week. However, there is a lot more to it than just TV listings.

The “Culture” magazine has articles on the latest books, music, movies, art, ballet, opera – you name it, “Culture” probably covers it.

Nevertheless, the subjects are genuinely more high-brow – or “cultured” if you like.

Take the movie reviews, for example. You may have read my last post about movies, in which I sang the praises of superhero films, comedy films and action thrillers. Such movies barely get a mention in the Sunday Times; the reviewers opt to cover more cultured movies – for example Lincoln, a film I absolutely slated in my previous post.

And this leads me to ask the question – am I cultured? Or am I just a boorish philistine with shallow views who scoffs at profound and deep meaning in books, music and entertainment in general.

You might agree, if you are a regular reader. I have insulted opera, Shakespeare and modern art in this blog and I can imagine that a “cultured” individual, who loves opera and cries whenever he sees a rousing Shakespearean speech while appreciating a vomit stain on the walls of the Tate Gallery, might roll his eyes, shake his head and dismiss my, in his eyes, shallow views on such erudite art forms.

As far as films are concerned, I know what I like and to be honest I don’t really care whether people think I am a philistine for preferring movies that don’t bore me to sleep.

The same goes for books and music. Many years ago I was intrigued by the fact that Salman Rushdie had had to go into hiding because of a book he wrote. Somebody offered me the chance to read one of his novels, some years after that. It wasn’t The Satanic Verses, the book that got him into so much trouble. I can’t recall which one it was – I think I have blocked it from my memory.

Why? Because it was awful.

Now I am sure that people regard the books of Mr Rushdie as cultured but I hated my one and only foray into his imagination. The same can be said about other books that are meant to be magnificent works of art and “must reads”. I have tried a few and been completely bored with them.

Does this mean I am a philistine? Does the fact that I would rather read a Stephen King novel make me an uncultured barbarian when it comes to literary (so-called) masterpieces?

As regular readers know, I despise and detest contemporary art and the insipid pseudo-intellectual arguments like “it is breaking new ground” or “it’s not been done before” to justify an absolutely horrific load of shit masquerading as art hanging on the walls of a modern art museum. So-called cultured people fawn over these pieces of excrement describing them in the most colourful words and phrases that in reality mean absolutely nothing.

The fact that I do not believe the words they are using to try to describe what the artist was trying to achieve makes me, in their eyes, an uncivilized savage compared to them.

And what about music?

Such people love the fact that I listen to rock music and sing its praises because it confirms my standing as an uncouth monster that lacks any intelligence or taste.

Except I don’t lack intelligence at all and I love to prove this to pseudo-intellectuals whenever I get the opportunity.

In my view, progressive rock is the new classical music. Such music is technically brilliant and comes from the minds of geniuses. The instrumentation is perfect and the songs are mini symphonies. Take another genre I am currently enthralled by: symphonic rock. Artists such as Nightwish prove that orchestral music and heavy metal can be made to complement each other.

Here is an example which proves that what is essentially a heavy metal band can produce a wide range of musical styles, in this case an instrumental orchestral piece. Even if you hate heavy metal please press play – because this will surprise you and hopefully amaze you:

So am I cultured?

If being cultured means being a pseudo-intellectual making up bullshit about a pile of bricks in the middle of a room – then no!

If being cultured means buying and reading a book by an author who is vastly overrated and only gets reviews in the Sunday Times – then no!

If being cultured means pretending that I like a film like Lincoln because it won Oscars – then no!

If being cultured means not buying the music I love because “heavy metal” is the music of thugs and savages – then no!

If being cultured means raving about Shakespearean actors performing Hamlet in Stratford-upon-Avon – then no!

If being cultured means sipping an expensive wine instead of my favourite pint of bitter – then no!

I hate modern art; I prefer Stephen King novels to boring Sunday Times bestsellers; I love my no-brainer action movies and not boring Oscar winning nonsense; I buy the music I love whether it be heavy metal, pop music, progressive rock or classical symphonies;

And Shakespeare is STILL rubbish!

I personally think that culture is an individual quality. If you are happy with your opera, Shakespeare, Rushdie or even framed vomit-stains on a wall in a museum full of junk masquerading as art – then that’s fine by me. Just as long as you don't pretend to love them just to appear cultured.

I regard myself as cultured – and you are too (unless you are a pseudo-intellectual in which case you are a pretentious arse).

Do you agree, dear reader? 

Do you think I cultured or am I a philistine?

Do you think you are cultured? 

If not, why not?

Shakespeare is Rubbish

Am I alone in thinking that William Shakespeare is over-rated? Am I the only one who thinks that most, if not all, of Shakespeare's plays are rubbish?

Sure he wrote some plays at a time when there was probably a serious lack of decent playwrights but to be honest, the things he wrote are not really relevant to our current time.

In fact, when I was at school I distinctly recall reading a Shakespeare play in a book that was 15% introduction, 30% play and 55% explanation of what the hell was going on.

Here is a clip from Blackadder that illustrates my feelings on Mr Shakespeare:



You see, I always had a huge problem with his plays. His tragedies were funny and his comedies weren’t. His plays were written in a form of English that was perfectly acceptable in 1592 but make no sense to an audience of school children in 1975 (when I first encountered him) or later.

English teachers told me that these classic works were leviathans of the literary world that would stand the test of time and that reading and understanding these magnificent works were essential in order to progress in life.

At school I didn’t have the courage to face my teachers and say:

“But they are SHIT!”

Instead I was forced to endure these dreadful and irrelevant plays that bored me to tears. We were forced to sit there and analyse every bloody phrase, every sentence and every nonsensical paragraph in the most stringent manner.

A typical question was “What was Shakespeare trying to say?” and the answer should have been “I don’t bloody well know. I don’t understand it. It is written in a language that has developed into something new over four centuries. It isn’t funny. It is meaningless and it doesn’t make sense. And it is totally and utterly irrelevant. It should stay in the 16th century where it bloody well belongs.”

Shakespeare is as dull as dishwater. If I were to read a play now I would fall asleep before the end of the first act.

One of the plays we had to endure was Twelfth Night, supposedly a comedy. I don’t think anybody laughed. Here is the opening speech:

If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! it had a dying fall:

O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:

'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,

That, notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,

Of what validity and pitch soe'er,

But falls into abatement and low price,

Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy

That it alone is high fantastical.


What a load of baloney. I’m sure that when it first played at the Globe theatre, the people who went to see it were mesmerised by Duke Orsino’s splendid delivery. But a twelve year old kid from Walsall? No bloody chance.

We were supposedly speaking learning to speak and write English but Shakespeare’s language is so dated that it makes little sense.

Who says “thou” and “receiveth” and “o’er” and ‘thy” and “soe’er”?

Nobody – apart maybe from a pseudo-intellectual who has his Shakespeare mixed up with his philosophers.

Having suffered Twelfth Night at school we were then expected to write essays that analysed it, essay like:

“Discuss the aspects of love in Twelfth Night”.

I wish I had of written:

“I can’t. I don’t understand it because it is irrelevant. And if this is a comedy then I am a monkey’s uncle. I didn’t laugh once. I’m sure the audience in 1592 rolled in the aisles but I think it is totally and utterly unfunny. If you had asked me to write an essay saying “Twelfth Night is not funny. Discuss.” I might have stood a chance.”

In the end, I wrote several pages of horseshit and scraped a pass.

These days it seems that every actor in the world wants to star in a Shakespeare play. Every single actor falls over themselves to walk on stage roaring to a crowd of people, saying bizarre things like “Hey Nonny Nonny”. The crowd nod in appreciation but probably haven’t a clue what it going on. It would appear that playing the lead in a play like Hamlet seems to be the pinnacle of achievement for an actor, particularly if it is in Stratford-upon-Avon.

I would dearly love to stand up and shout “For goodness sake – speak ENGLISH!”

I would love to continue to barrack pseudo-intellectuals in this post, those who appreciate this nonsense in order to be recognised as culture vultures, but there are people who are genuinely moved by Shakespeare.

I had a discussion once with a woman who told me that she cried when she read Henry V’s rousing speech to his soldiers just before the battle of Agincourt. Here is Kenneth Branagh, a fine actor, giving his all:



I must admit that it is an awe inspiring piece of acting and Kenneth Branagh delivers it with gusto. Without necessarily understanding what he is saying, I can get the gist. If we are going to witness this in a modern film, why not simply modernise it? Instead of:

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remembered-

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition;

And gentlemen in England now-a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.


why not say something like:

And from today until the end of time on this day, the feast of St Crispin, everybody will remember how you, my brothers, my band of brave warriors, shed your blood with me. And you are my brothers, make no mistake. And those men, asleep in England, will curse themselves for not being here on this momentous occasion; may they hang their heads in shame that they did not fight with us in this glorious battle on St Crispin’s day.

Okay – so I’m not Shakespeare and certainly could not write a modern day equivalent, but I am absolutely sure that a decent writer could capture the passion of that inspiring speech and leave the audience captivated, instead of thinking, “Well, he sounded brilliant but what the heck was he talking about?”

I’d like to finish with a reference to Macbeth. Now, bizarrely, this play is known as The Scottish Play rather than Macbeth because, apparently the play is cursed. The fact that it features witches and witchcraft may contribute to this but I suspect that it is an absolute load of nonsense. It has been used to real comedic effect in one of my favourite comedy shows: Blackadder the Third:



Personally I am not superstitious at all and if I were to star in Macbeth I would gladly say “Macbeth” repeatedly all the time just to irritate any pillocks who thought that mentioning the name would bring bad luck.

I would also try to sneak in a “Hey Nonny Nonny” and at the end I would ask the audience whether they understood a single word I had said.

If you like Shakespeare, dear reader, I would be happy to hear from you; perhaps you can explain why I should change my mind about his works.

In the meantime, enjoy a quote from the great man that some of you may think rather apt when reading this post:

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.