The Persuaders!

 'The Persuaders!' (which had perhaps the best theme music ever) was 'Snobbar som Jobbar' in Sweden (pronounced Snobbarr som Yobbarr) which translates as Snobs with Jobs - a bafflingly perverse plurality, given the series' central theme contrasting Moore's posh-voiced Brit snob, singular, with Curtis' 'by my own boot straps from the streets of New York' character.

Other notable losses in titular translation include '007 Dies Twice' (You Only Live Twice, Japan), 'I'm Drunk and You're a Prostitute' (Leaving Las Vegas, Japan), and, of course 'Meetings and Failures in Meetings' (Lost in Translation, Portugal).

Die Zwei!/Amicalement Votre/De Versieders!/Kaygisizlar

Full Disclosure

 Motorcycle: 1962 Triumph 3TA with 5TA 490cc cast iron barrels and aluminium head, 12v conversion with twin coils, Kirkby Rowbotham electronic ignition distributor kit and Cibié quartz halogen headlight

Watch: 1945 British Army issue Timor ‘Dirty Dozen’ WWW (Watch, Wrist, Waterproof)

Suit: model’s own (like everything else)

Shot using 1938 Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 521/16 120, Tessar 3.5/7.5 cm lens, Compur-Rapid shutter

Location: 18 Canonbury Place, London N1

Date: 1986

Northern Lights

 Looking northeast from our building at sunset last night. Followed later by a more low key but equally spectacular glimpse of the Northern Lights.

photo: Tjøstheim Constantin Korsvold Nikolay

After hearing a G2 class solar flare event was on its way, I was checking the northern skies at 1 am. They were clear, except for a peculiar dead black meniscus with a sharply defined geometric margin above the northern horizon. The edge was just as smooth and exact through binoculars. 

At five past one, fingers of vivid green light with golden margins suddenly appeared, one at a time and intermittently, springing into view from below the horizon, growing upwards beyond the meniscus and wavering before dying down again. It was so affecting, despite being exactly what I was actually looking for, that 'an involuntary cry of wonder was forced from my lips'.

Two minutes later, it was gone.

I have made frequent visits to these latitudes in Sweden over the past 30 years, and many (but less) to the vicinity of the Arctic Circle, always hoping to see the aurora, but always, whenever there was activity, it was obscured by cloud, or latterly, the glare from the floodlights of the out of town shopping outlets around the world's northernmost IKEA. The last time I saw the aurora was in Whitehaven in 1974, which was a much more extended and powerful display. The solar cycle was at its lowest last year, and it's just started building towards another peak in 2025, so there are more displays in lower latitudes to come

Capitalised Communicable Conditions

 Things you could get, in the past: The Screaming Abdabs, The Heebie Jeebies, The Willies, The Collywobbles (although strictly speaking, The Willies were something someone gave you, rather than something you'd got).

The Bristled Cadaver

John Osborne, writing of George Devine, theatrical manager & director: "After the nightly satisfaction of outfacing The Chairs audience, there was the beginning of his adventure with Samuel Beckett. If Ionesco's discordant willfulness intrigued him, Beckett's temperament inspired him with almost apostolic awe. Even the peremptory sourness of Brecht couldn't match the incomparably bleached bone of Beckett and his liturgical 'toneless voice'.

Uncle Sam had the monstrous good fortune of actually looking like one of his own plays, a graven icon of his own texts. The bristled cadaver and mountain-peak stare were the ultimate purifier that deified all endeavour, pity or hope.

 If the head of a Balzac or Ionesco or a dozen other sybaritically fleshed-out masters had been put onto the Irishman's torso, the response to the purity of that 'toneless voice' might not have been so immediate.                                                                               Furthermore, for George, he had the impeccable credentials of French cultural hauteur." 

Almost a Gentleman, An Autobiography Volume II, Faber and Faber, London, 1991

The Suit

 Some years ago I bought a vintage suit. It’s made from ginger tweed that’s thicker than the cloth anyone would use to make an overcoat today, and while the jacket is cut close, with a nipped in waist, the pants are huge, with the ‘waist’ band fitting snugly under my sternum, and vast flapping legs that would billow in the wind like flags if the material wasn’t so heavy - they're so wide that they’re draughty in cold weather. From the cut, it’s probably from the 30s or 40s, and couldn’t in any case be later than the 50s, I would have thought

The Suit in Haparanda

Shortly after getting it, I wore it to visit a pub near my flat. It was (and still is) in a historically working class area of 1950s council housing, alleys with Dickensian leftovers, and a few landmarks of Cockneydom from song and legend. Despite only being 20 minutes’ walk from my flat, which was near The Angel, it’s in EC1, which I suppose makes it the City rather than the East End.

While I was ordering my first pint, the landlord came over and introduced himself. He said he used to be a tailor, and he couldn’t help noticing my suit. We spoke about where I got it from, and various details of construction and style. My drink was on the house all night, and came with whiskey chasers, no matter how much I said I didn’t want them. In a short while, other men in well-tailored suits with interesting details began to arrive, and whenever I went to the bar, I would find myself in conversation with men slightly older than myself, discussing the intricacies of Mod fashion, and differences in details and style between where I come from and London at the time. One man was wearing a Victorian-style frock coat, and another a toned-down drape suit in a kind of restrained Ted style. The pub regulars seated on the stools at the bar also introduced themselves, and also offered to buy me drinks, which I tactfully declined.

On subsequent visits when the landlord wasn’t around, I wasn’t entirely surprised that my new best friends who sat at the bar completely ignored me, as they had on the many occasions previous to my being made a fuss of by the landlord.

The next time I was there when the landlord was present was with my wife and her brother and his wife, who were visiting from Sweden. They were to have what turned out to be an evening to remember. 

After the landlord had favoured us with his mark of approval, all the regulars once again made their way to our table to tender their very fulsome respects, and we were eventually compelled to move to a regular’s table by the exercise of his considerable force of personality, as his invitations became almost threatening. He was wearing a Nehru suit and was loaded with more bullion bling than the late Bobby George - ropes of gold chains  and sov rings forming a row of knuckle dusters on each hand. He was in his 60s, and despite his age, had an air of physical danger. He was whipcord thin with a face like a skull, that managed to sneer malevolently even while smiling (not that he smiled that often). We were inundated with drinks bought by him and sent by well-wishers, and we each had a queue of pints and shorts lined up in front of us all night. Conversation was a little difficult because this was Friday night and there was a turn on, belting out 50s and 60s pop over a karaoke-style backing track. I nonetheless managed to talk to our new drinking companion, having been given the place of honour at his left elbow. 

Aside from our new friend’s appearance, I had begun to understand what kind of circle I’d been charmed into on my last meeting with the landlord from his answer to me when I asked where he’d been since then. He’d been ‘away’, but he told me that the pub was in his wife’s name (I knew that practically the only qualification for a publican is to have no criminal record, so I actually understood why that was relevant), and asked me if I knew Newmarket, where he’d most recently been visiting the stables where he kept a few racehorses. He also mentioned that he'd started taking an interest in the career of a young boxer.

So I was pretty sure my neighbour’s appearance wasn't just a hard man pose, but everything still felt a bit unreal, like finding myself in a Guy Ritchie film, and I made the mistake of pushing my luck. 

Even though I knew he didn’t like me, and probably thought I was a middle-class tosser, and the respect he was showing was purely because of the landlord (who presumably ranked quite a bit higher in the crim heirarchy), I pushed my luck. I asked him what he did. He gave me a sharp look, and said he was retired. I asked him what he did before he retired. He gave me a longer look and paused before answering.

“I was an engineer.” in a flat tone that didn’t invite any further discussion.

And then I pushed my luck a bit further.

"What kind of engineer, Jack*? A civil engineer, a mechanical engineer, a…”

Before I got any further, I got a look of considerable annoyance, and he cut in with:

“I made problems go away - alright? Why all the fuckin’ questions?”

At that point, despite the amount I’d drunk, I felt a sudden spurt of fear, I understood that this wasn’t a Guy Ritchie film, that this man wasn’t an actor, that the way he was dressed wasn’t a joke, and that actions could have consequences I wouldn’t normally anticipate.

I was careful not to transgress the boundaries of our brief window of conviviality after that.

The next time I was in, the landlord wasn’t, and the regulars didn’t even glance in my direction. When I attempted to say hello to Jack*, he gave me a look of dislike and then ignored me.

After that, I didn't see the landlord again, or his underworld dandy friends, and I remained invisible to the other customers.

*Not his real name

The late Bobby George

Borreman

Title: Borreman

 

At: Hvitsten Artwalk, Hvitsten near Oslo, Friday 15.7.16

 

Concept: Folk rituals are a rich and historic manifestation of popular culture; a kind of people’s performance art. An extraordinary number are still observed in the British Isles, across every region and throughout the calendar. Many persist in mainland Europe; but in Scandinavia there are few, and in Norway almost none.

This performance transposes a performance from Britain to Norway.

 

The Burryman is a herring-charming ritual of east coast fishing communities in Scotland. A man chosen by vote is paraded around town wearing a bowler hat, balaclava and clothes completely covered in the small, spherical, velcro-like fruit of the Burdock plant and given whisky to drink through a straw in every pub. The thousands of burdocks needed must be collected only by the Burryman, and used while still green. He is forced to walk with his legs held apart and his arms extended, otherwise the burrs would cling to each other. The weight of the burrs is so great that he holds upright wooden staves to relieve the burden on his arms and shoulders.

 

Synopsis: The fruits of the burdock (Arctium lappa, genus Arctium, Norwegian: Storborre) were collected and attached, and the embellished performer appeared at an arts festival in a seaside village on the Oslofjord.

 

photo AW