"Doing the right thing" - what now for nuclear power?

I like David Cameron's adopted phrase "doing the right thing". And as we think about our country's energy demands, and how we should provide power in the next 30 years, how does nuclear power fit in?

I attended a very moving event yesterday at Slackspace, where the local arts community had put on a day long event to raise cash for the Red Cross in Japan, and awareness about events beyond the clips on "You Tube". The Japanese Society from the University of Essex were there, sharing reports from their homeland, and their leader made a very moving speech about how the Japanese retain hope amidst all the destruction, and that the support from all round the world has helped.

As he spoke he became more impassioned, with talk about "we will never surrender" and "never give up", the overload of images and cultural references frazzled my brain, and the multi-connected synapses sought something more familiar, with a hybrid of Ian Paisley and Galaxy Quest popping up in my mind.

Fred Slattern did a bit of spoken word busking in town, and a set at Slackspace to a mainly rock and roll audience of about 150, which went OK. I think the one about Caravan Man Steve Ball was the best received...

Anyway, back to nuclear power. My first reaction to the failure of the power station at Fukushima was "how could this happen?". Yes, it was a very big earthquake and tsunami, but surely foreseeable within the life of the power station, and to be designed for. It looked like major contamination was inevitable, but at the time of writing this, it looks like the worst case scenario has been avoided.

So how do we respond in the UK to this latest example of the nuclear power industry to appear unable to deal with the monster under its guard? After all, this was a Japanese plant, with the benefit of their wealth, advanced technology, attention to detail and manufacturing skills, and surely designed to deal with the conditions expected in their country? And talking about "doing the right thing", our thoughts were with the devoted nuclear industry employees and retired workers  who were battling with the reactors, in their attempts to regain stability at  the plant. My view is that if the Japanese can't manage nuclear power, then nobody can.

So we need to produce more energy in the UK? Will it be coal fired, or nuclear, or "green"? If the government is to make a tough decision and "do the right thing", can we countenance more nuclear power? Or do we accept the environmental downside and expense of coal fired or green schemes? Looking at the legacy we pass on to the next generations, I've never been happy with nuclear power.

But it's too easy for us, the public, to leave the decision to the government, expecting "them" to "do the right thing". What will WE do? And there's the rub - we don't need the extra power stations, if we, the public, were prepared to reduce our demand. It's not just about us having to live in cooler homes, and wear more baggy pullovers (like wot I do). Our lifestyles and consumerism are built around excessive energy demands (yes, including mine), and our society does not seem prepared to rein it in.

Back to last night's event. After the report from the Japanese Society, we were all invited to step forward and join in a sing-along led by the Japanese. It was "sukiyaki", a tune I recognised; and to help us with the singing they had the Japanese words, in anglicised spelling, rolling through on a screen. Very moving, and a rather bizarre taste of Japan for someone whose only direct experience of Japan was a few meals at the Tokyo Diner round the back of Leicester Square. I may never have been further east than Helsinki, but I have watched Leyton Orient a few times.

Fred Slattern, Colchester's slum poet

FRED SLATTERN - Colchester's SLUM POET is expected to appear on the busk-stop stage at the Colchester Free Festival on 18 September. He will present his show “love, hate and prettygate”.

Fred is Colchester’s “x for no publicity” slum poet, and has been talked into appearing in public for the first time. His short pithy poems reflect Colchester life from the vantage point of anonymous suburbia. Listen to his tales, and spot yourself in his writing. He’s been watching you.

I have written some fairly upbeat pieces, mostly mercifully short, celebrating Colchester. I would suggest the material's more in the "amusing observations" bracket rather than proper poetry. Every now and then I like to challenge myself to do something different. This could all be a terrible mistake.

Some days are more interesting than others.

With some jobs, you pretty well know what you'll be doing today, next week, next month and next year. And I guess road liners come into that category. I felt so happy for the guy who did this. There he was anticipating another week shuffling along the gutter, mile after mile of straight lines, and he gets sent here. Lovely curving shapes round the traffic calming, an opportunity to show a bit more flair in his work. I hope he enjoyed laying the lines as much as I admired looking at his efforts. Bridget Riley, eat your heart out.

modern art is ????

This week I had a courier job, to take a package to London's South Bank. and while I was there I popped into Tate Modern, the "most popular modern art museum in the world" they say. Well it's certainly popular with me. The picture above was one of a series of landscapes with bizarre messages, by Edward Ruscha. I loved the contrast of the complexity of the natural landscapes with the plain lettering superimposed. I think I have an idea of what the man in the street's views are about some of the modern art, but I wonder what the gallery goers really think about some of the displays.

Some people rave about Marc Rothko and his coloured rectangles, going on about the mood created by the slabs of colour, and the texture of the paint on canvas. Well I've seen Dulux charts, and felt rough blankets on my knees as a young boy, and I don't feel the urge to contemplate life sitting for twenty minutes in front of a Rothko "masterpiece".

And here's a masterpiece from home. It's our (aged three and 3/4) Frank's first chalk on concrete portrait of a man, with the clown feet, Edward Scissorhands hands, and a head with big ears. I'm looking forward to visiting the galleries with him this summer. I remember enjoying going to the National Gallery with my dad, and hope Frank too enjoys what he sees. One thing's for sure. He'll say what he thinks about the pictures, with no sensibilities for the artists and their followers...........

Frank's art gallery

No message today, just some lovely pictures by Frank

Flavor bud living

For those that wondered, this blogspot's title is a play on this piece of music, one of my favourite "tunes". It is a Captain Beefheart composition, and he appears briefly at the beginning of this one minute long piece of music. Gary Lucas then works his way through this wonderful jangling music, wrestling with the guitar to play all the notes dictated by the Captain. I love the way it hints at a tune, but turns away just when we're on the brink of a melody, before it can properly become established. Wonderful invention, and well played Mr Lucas. For those less familiar with Don Van Vliet's work I suggest playing this short film three times, and then you can decide for yourself if you never need hear it again, or if you are hooked into the wonderful world of Beefheart's music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXIObTwo4b8

The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band changed my life forever

An evening of nostalgia was expected, and a two-man show (Isoceles in association with Useful Idiots) served this up at Colchester Arts Centre, with lashings of pathos on top. Half expecting a show full of obscure references to the Bonzos, I was slightly disappointed that there were few Doo-Dah Band in-jokes or tunes, however the compensation was that the show could be enjoyed by anyone. But it would help to be at least 55 to know all the songs.

The two actor/singers were playing a has-been minor rock performer, and a never-was Vivien Stanshall impersonator, both waiting to audition for a "60s, one-hit wonders tribute show". With a nod to "Waiting for Godot", the audition never happens, as the players philosophise on life, interweaving lyrics from popular songs, and singing much reduced versions with their two voices accompanied by an electronic keyboard.

It was a tragi-comedy, and I'm sure most of the audience empathised with the lives portrayed by the artists. And the final line of the show was (almost inevitably) "here comes the twist, I don't exist" as the stage fell into darkness.

So, did I enjoy it? Well yes, but part of the fun was the audience. Remember the comedy sketches about "the nut on the bus" that always chooses to sit on the empty seat sit next to you? Well folks, that was my evening out. Just before the start this very nervy man occupied the inviting seat that was left after all the other groups, couples and singletons has taken most of the other 52 seats. With his Sainsbury's plastic bag full of whatever he needed to get through the evening, he fidgeted all show, dipping into his wrestling and boxing mags whenever the lights came on. Various rocking movements, and the odd puff on some electronic gadget that "smoked" his cigarettes, suggested he was struggling with (giving up?) smoking. Now and then he would madly laugh at an inappropriate moment, and he had a bit of a personal hygiene problem too. During the songs he would sometimes stamp his feet, though clearly his brain was beating to an entirely different drum.

And behind me was a very old man with a massive white beard, who insisted on badly whistling the tune he had last heard, even though the actors had moved on to some poignant discussion on our pitiful existence. On occasion he also gave voice to his thoughts about the play, which were quite entertaining in their own right.

There were times when I wondered if I was sitting in the middle of some performance art project, and that hidden cameras were recording my reactions to these two crazy guys. There I was expecting carefully crafted references on stage, to "my pink half of the drainpipe", and "the doughnut in granny's greenhouse", and what I got was 360 degrees of live art.

Open Top Sound, and cheerleaders

"Further" was on the front of the magic bus from the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. And today we went on a bus that displayed "Listen".

Local artist Matt Cook's project "Open Top Sound" comprised of an open top bus ride round Colchester town centre. But the twist was that we were surrounded by speakers giving us ambient recordings made earlier in the town centre, mixed with edited irregular snippets of information from Blue badge guides. And on top of this were fresh ambient sounds from traffic, the buzz of Saturday commerce, and hecklers on the street responding to our crazy bus. Looking down on the common populace below, we were intrigued by their perplexed looks, as we broadcast back to them their own sounds of the town.

Bizarre. Which was also my feeling later in the day, when I attended the Freshers' Fair at the University of Essex. Thousands of people milling around in the autumn sunshine, being courted by about a hundred different political societies, pantomime horses, food outlets, sports clubs, philosophers, people in lion and parrot suits, fitness groups, history and art societies, theatre groups, religions and CHEERLEADERS?!?!

Were these women in tight bright short clothes, waving pom-poms, being ironic? Were they feminists exerting their rights to do whatever they wanted, were they anti-feminists happy to take on a decorative role for their (mainly male) audience, or were they post-feminists where the feminist battles have been won, so we don't need to concern ourselves about this stuff any more? Or maybe I should abandon my angst, and just enjoy the show.

Free food - the gleaners

OK I enjoy a bit of tucker now and then (arcane language learned from Billy Bunter books), and if it comes free of charge, so much the better. And right now we're in the gleaning season, and it has been a bumper crop. The hedgerows have had an abundance of blackberries and damsons. A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to come across a wild plum tree, with the ripe fruit dropping off with the lightest tapping. At the weekend I'm going to checkout my favourite row of chestnut trees to see how the crop is this year - it hasn't been too good for a few years.

Last weekend while walking on a right of way across a harvested potato field out at Bradfield, with ease I picked up half a rucsac of spuds left behind by the quick and labour-light machinery. The previous weekend I saw dozens of older people at Bures loading up bags on their bike crossbars, stuffed full of onions missed by the mechanised farming processes. I didn't have any bags with me so I couldn't join in. I wonder if I could have got away with "give those to me, I'm the landowner"?

And tomorrow it's apple picking day. I'm off with some pals (something like "Last of the Summer Wine") to a secret location in north Essex, on the site of an old WW2 US airforce base, where, so the story goes, the guys planted pips from their apples, and we now have some very old but still productive wild apple trees. Some for eating, and some for freezing, methinks.

So where are all these free food places? Well I'm not putting the locations on here am I? Sharing it with many thousands of others. Anyway, it's too late for much of this stuff. I was warned by Facebook pal Louise Denyer that "Andrew, you should know that the optimum time to pick blackberries is before the end of August otherwise they are "Devil's food" and are very bitter!" I told her I don't believe these old wives' tales about "the devil's food". Anyway, I had picked them to smear on my forehead and cure my baldness.

De Magnete

Plunging into darkness, I entered Holy Trinity church on Saturday, walking in from bright sunlight to a blacked out nave, lit only by a dozen candles in the aisles. Ahead of me, a screen appeared as my pupils dilated to their maximum, to compensate for the low levels of illumination I was experiencing. Amidst cracking and buzzing sounds, I saw a woodland scene, as the camera panned around. (And I won't describe any more, as you need to see this for yourself.)

A short film by Kathleen Herbert was on show, "De Magnete" in celebration of Colchester's "father of electricity" William Gilberd, who was born in the town and buried in that church. "De Magnete" was Gilberd's publication on "electricus", a term he developed, and distinguished from magnetism.

Says Gilberd "The electric effluvia differ much from air, and as air is the earth's effluvium, so electric bodies have their own distinctive effluvia; and each peculiar effluvium has its own individual power of leading to union, its own movement to its origin, to its fount, and to the body emitting the effluvium." (From De Magnete.)

Was Herbert's film to be a documentary? Or would it be a Derek Jarman style "Jubilee", comparing a first Elizabethan thinker with a contemporary viewpoint? Or would it be Don Van Vliet's "Electricity" in the medium of film?

Catch it for yourself, and experience the spirit of nature and the elements, captured on video.