FRIDAY MUSIC: Fado with Mariza, by JD

 A visit to Portugal for this week's music courtesy of Mariza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariza who I discovered on last week's BBC2 show "Later With Jools Holland."

This introduction to her music is from the 2005 archive of the show - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09xq517

THURSDAY BACKTRACK: Music and news from 60 years ago - week ending 14 October 1961

 At #2 this week is John Leyton's 'Wild Wind':

Some memorable events (via Wikipedia):

8 October; the Berlin Wall story continues: 'The first of at least 134 residents of East Berlin escaped to the West through a manhole that led to an underground sewer that ran underneath the Berlin Wall. West German students Dieter Thieme and Detlef Girmann organized the Unternehmen Reisebüro, also called the "Girmann Group". The operation lasted for four nights until East German police learned what was happening and closed off the route.'

10 October: 'The United Kingdom began negotiations with the six-member European Economic Community to seek membership in the Common Market, with an opening speech in Paris by Prime Minister* Edward Heath.' [*Incorrect; at that time he was Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and Deputy Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Wikipedia misinformation.]

    Text of his speech: https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/statement_by_edward_heath_paris_10_october_1961-en-d990219a-8ad0-4758-946f-cb2ddd05b3c0.html

    On the same day: 'All 260 residents of the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha were evacuated by two small fishing boats, following a volcanic eruption on destroyed the crayfish canning factory that was the source of many islanders' livelihood. The group then spent the night on Nightingale Island, a 0.75 square mile patch of rock, 13 miles away, to await the arrival of the Dutch liner Tjisadane, which took them to South Africa.'

11 October, Vietnam War: 'The United States presence in South Vietnam was increased as President Kennedy authorized the deployment of an entire U.S. Air Force unit, the 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron, to fly combat missions from the Bien Hoa Air Base.'

13 October: 'Prince Louis Rwagasore, the popular eldest son of King Mwambutasa and who had been selected by the new legislature to be the first Prime Minister of Burundi in advance of the African nation's independence from Belgium, was assassinated. Rwagasaore was dining with his cabinet at a restaurant on Lake Tanganyika, when he was killed by a single shot fired by Jean Kageorgis, a Greek national. "Perhaps no other event has weighed more heavily on the destinies of Burundi," noted one historian, adding that "many believe that if only fate had given him a chance, he might have spared his nation the traumas that would soon tear it apart."'

14 October: 'For twelve hours, all commercial flights in the United States and Canada were grounded in order to conduct the NORAD exercise Operation Sky Shield II. Starting, as scheduled, at 1:00 pm Washington DC time, civilian airline flights were halted and military planes conducted an exercise simulating a foreign bombing attack on North American targets. Commercial flights were allowed to take off again twelve hours later. It was the longest scheduled halt of air traffic in United States history, exceeded only by the emergency grounding following September 11, 2001.'

UK chart hits, week ending 14 October 1961 (tracks in italics have been played in earlier posts)

Htp: Clint's labour-of love compilation https://www.sixtiescity.net/charts/61chart.htm

1	Walkin' Back To Happiness	Helen Shapiro	Columbia
2	Wild Wind	John Leyton	Top Rank
3	Michael Row The Boat	The Highwaymen	HMV
4	Jealousy	Billy Fury	Decca
5	You'll Answer To Me	Cleo Laine	Fontana
6	Wild In The Country / I Feel So Bad	Elvis Presley	RCA
7	Kon*Tiki	The Shadows	Columbia
8	Sucu Sucu	Laurie Johnson	Pye
9	Johnny Remember Me	John Leyton	Top Rank
10	Together	Connie Francis	MGM
11	Get Lost	Eden Kane	Decca
12	You Don't Know	Helen Shapiro	Columbia
13	Granada	Frank Sinatra	Reprise
14	Hats Off To Larry	Del Shannon	London
15	Who Put The Bomp	The Viscounts	Nixa
16	Michael Row The Boat / Lumbered	Lonnie Donegan	Pye
17	Sucu Sucu	Nina and Frederik	Columbia
18	My Boomerang Won't Come Back	Charlie Drake	Parlophone
19	Bless You	Tony Orlando	Fontana
20	Hard Hearted Hannah / Chilli Bom*Bom	The Temperance Seven	Parlophone

UPDATED: Death rates rising in the UK

I'm not the only one to notice:

'NHS bosses are apparently puzzled by the fact that there are, in the UK, thousands of excess deaths at the moment. These excess deaths are not caused by covid-19. I cannot imagine why the NHS is puzzled. I forecast nearly 18 months ago that there would be a flurry of extra deaths at this time..'

Dr Vernon Coleman, 14 October
https://vernoncoleman.org/articles/scary-stuff-you-should-know

________________________________________________________________________________

Something is going on. The provisional death statistics for England and Wales have just been released, and over the last three month period (weeks 27-39) this is what we see re Covid fatalities:

The 2020 figures are those where Covid was 'mentioned on the death certificate'; this year's are where Covid was named as the 'underlying' i.e. main cause of death. ('Mentions' are slightly higher. Like-for-like for those 13 weeks: 2021=7,506 mentions, 2020 =2,664 mentions.)

But by itself, Covid does not go anywhere near accounting for this year's increase in mortality from all causes over that period. In 2020, total deaths from weeks 27 to 39 were 118,197 which is almost exactly the same as the previous five-year average (118,328); in 2021 the corresponding figure is 132,203 - about 14,000 more than last year.

So for the last three months, we have seen 10,169 deaths per week as compared with 2020's weekly toll of 9,092; up by more than a thousand a week.

In weeks 27-39 of 2020, deaths where Covid was mentioned on the death certificate totalled 2,664; in 2021, 7,506 'mentions' or 6,514 'underlying causes.' That is, Covid-related fatalities account for less than four or five thousand of the 14,000 difference between this year and last, over that period.

What has been happening? How do we account for this recent non-Covid surge?

Inflation and levelling-up

Last month’s Labour Party Conference vote for a minimum wage of £15 an hour https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58713344 raises the inflationary Seventies issue of pay parity versus pay differential. Those who were around then will recall that many strikes were about groups of workers trying to get the same pay as peers in other companies, and that settlements would be followed by higher-skilled workers looking for raises to reflect the greater value of their own labour.

An example of differential: the entry-level salary of a classroom teacher is £25,714 per annum https://www.nasuwt.org.uk/advice/pay-pensions/pay-scales/england-pay-scales.html#Classroom%20Teachers . Ignoring the five ‘Baker days’ of in-service training, teachers work 190 days a year and according to the NEU, an average of 49.5 hours a week https://neu.org.uk/state-education-staff-workload-wellbeing-and-retention . Crunch those numbers and you get a starter’s hourly rate of £13.67, after six years of self-investment by way of extra school, college and teacher training. Pay in that NEU survey was actually the least important reason for teachers wanting to leave; nevertheless, the economic disruption of wage competition is on the way.

It will sort itself out in the long run, provided two things happen:

1. At the same time as demanding minimum hourly pay rates, the Labour Party (and the current Conservative administration) must agree to controls on economic migration if they do not wish to see continued structural long-term unemployment and under-employment.

2. Similarly, the virtuous economic circle of individuals re-spending their earnings within the country is threatened by the leak of money abroad on consumer imports. We must do whatever we can to adjust trade tariffs and agreements; in any case, the world’s supply network is under increasing strain and our resilience is a growing concern.

It is good to read MP John Redwood’s strictures on central banks https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/10/10/inflation-3/ and our national failure to plan for greater self-sufficiency. Really we have had the chance to make contingency plans for Brexit since January 2013 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33141819 , though the financial consequences of EU membership and wider globalisation were obvious for decades before that.

Mr Redwood notes that consumer price inflation is coming (and of course we have the energy crisis upon us, too.) When NS&I changed our index-linked certificates from RPI to CPI I suspected then that they had bet the wrong way, haha; but what to do with our non-protected cash? As a humble ex-IFA I see the stock market as a skyscraper straddling the San Andreas Fault; also, bond yields are miserable and likely to remain so, since raising interest rates would compromise the government’s finances, let alone ours.

The fight to retain the Northern Blue Wall has prompted the present administration to compete with the hapless faux-socialists and make noises about ‘levelling up’; perhaps that will be achieved in burning up our savings. I look forward to the funny speech Boris will make then; I’ll be needing a good laugh.

Keep on truckin'... or not, by JD

My brother has a class one HGV licence and has had it for nearly forty years. He has shown me photos of a forty ton artic plus trailer fully loaded with straw which he has driven into farmyards and out again. I don't know how he does it. I've been in the cab of one of these vehicles and they are huge, I would be rather tentative if I had to drive one on the public roads and very, very nervous if I were to tackle a farm road!

Last week he showed me his letter from Boris asking him to return to HGV driving again. Needless to say he is going to ignore the call. He doesn't need the money that badly any more and he has better things to do.

I found this copy on one of the Government's web sites. Just as a matter of interest how many people know that 'assets publishing' is where the Government hides information they don't want the public to read? It is where they publish all the gory details advocated by the behavioural psychologists of SAGE and the 'nudge' units; how to manipulate people etc. I doubt if any psychologist made a contribution to this letter, it is 100% bureaucratic in the style of Sir Humphrey and doesn't offer any sort of encouragement or incentive to disappeared HGV drivers.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1020169/letter-to-hgv-licence-holders.pdf

And I laughed when I saw the signature - Baroness Vere of Norbiton. Who is she? Oh, I see; she is Minister for Roads, buses and places! That title sounds like something out of The Two Ronnies with Ronnie Barker sitting behind a desk explaining idiotic government policies.

Read the comments here beneath the MailOnLine story to know why HGV drivers are not returning. Most of those comments and complaints have been verified by my brother at one time or another. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/experts/article-10046133/How-HGV-driver-Training-costs-salary-expectations.html

And look at the photo of the Waitrose delivery truck. Far too big for suburban deliveries. I see vehicles like that trying to negotiate the confined spaces around my local supermarket. And not just the confined spaces, there are parked cars blocking access as well as car drivers who get in the way at inappropriate moments.

Here is an example of what drivers must face while making deliveries on roads which were designed for the horse and cart and having to use a large articulated lorry because it is more 'efficient' for the haulage company:

My brother has been very selective in his driving and, because he has been doing it for a long time, he has built up a 'network' of reliable 'contacts' who can provide suitable work for him. preferring to work for smaller local companies mostly connected to farming or to heavy haulage. He would rather drive 'dirty' loads like coal or ash or rubble from demolition. He spent a few years transporting cattle from the marts and delivering them overnight to farmers all over Northumberland and Cumbria. The only overnight stay job he has done was taking a racehorse to Ireland a couple of years ago. I'm sure other drivers would have similar arrangements after many years in the industry

A few days ago I saw an article in the local paper saying there was a shortage of bus drivers and there had been regular cancellations of some services. It seems that the Government has also written to current bus drivers asking them to switch to HGV driving. Yet more 'joined up' thinking from our politicians and civil servants! I wondered if this was a local problem but I can now see it is a national problem with this story:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10077115/Wage-boosts-new-HGV-hauliers-attracts-public-transport-staff-meaning-cut-journeys.html

I cannot see any bus drivers being tempted by the Government's offer; a PSV licence will not allow you to drive a heavy goods vehicle. Bus drivers would have to do the training and then apply to the DVLA for a new licence. As far as I know the delays within the DVLA is one of the lorry drivers' biggest complaints so ex bus drivers will have to join the queue!

But, not to worry. Boris is on holiday. Strange how he always runs away at the right time, remember all those missed Cobra meetings at the start of the covid last year?

Muddle on Boris! One day your luck will run out!

In a nutshell: postwar history, by Paddington

My summary of US and UK culture from World War II onwards.

Returning soldiers decided that they deserved better from their government and country, and the rebuilding began, with strong, active and violent unions. This process was much slower in Britain, which had given all of its money to the US during the course of the war.

Deciding that things had 'gone too far', we elected Thatcher and Reagan, who destroyed the unions (and with it any hope for the working class), and handed much of the money and power to the rich and multi-national corporations.

Blair and Clinton carried on these policies with false promises of the 'Information Age', while the corporations used their power to crush the middle class, including the education system, and small businesses.

Bush and Blair gave us the distraction of the 'War on Terror', which distracted us with collective fear, and prevented us from really noticing that most of the benefits of increased productivity were flowing to the top 1% or so.

Obama tried not to rock the boat, and trod a very thin line, while being assailed for everything, including wanting the 'wrong' mustard, and wearing a tan suit.

With seemingly no hope in either direction, the US turned to an idiot demagogue (Trump, just to be clear) and the UK to a blithering idiot (Johnson)* to save us from ourselves.

* (preceded by Brown - unelected heir to Blair / Cameron - old school upper class twit / May - Thatcher wannabe)

WEEKENDER: The Plant Hunters, by Wiggia

E H Wilson, left, with Charles Sprague Sargent, director of the Arnold Arboretum

Two things started me on this short story. First was my re-kindling of interest, the digging out of books and catalogues for research for my new to be garden, several shelves of material that had been gathering dust since I retired and a brain that needed kick starting into action; amazing what a few short years of relative idleness does to the old grey matte - plants that I could rattle off all the Latin names of I suddenly couldn’t even remember their common names. So that was one part.

The second was when I started reading some of this material and the realisation was reignited in my mind of how much we owe today to those intrepid plant hunters, of whom so many were British during mainly the Victorian period, and how much we and the world owe them, not just for the wonders they returned with from all those far-flung lands but also the fruits and vegetables that we now take for granted on our supermarket shelves.

It is pure coincidence that this small event in the scheme of things should happen at a time when our own PM is blaming the industrial revolution that this country started and gave to the world for being the main cause behind Climate Change and somehow we should atone for it all. To trash your own country for what was one of the major drivers to the prosperity we and the west have today, though maybe not tomorrow because of his and others' policies, has to be one of the most crass statements from a British politician in history.

What also occurred during that period of the revolution was incredible wealth for the few which in turn gave rise to the demand for the wonders and materials from far-off lands. One of those items was a desire to plant and grow exotic items as status symbols that were brought back from the four corners of the globe by a group of people who became known as plant hunters, and the largest proportion of them were from the UK.

Johnson is not alone in his criticism of the effects of the industrial revolution; it was intertwined with our expanding Empire, and today even Kew Gardens takes a woke line on the plant hunting era...

“Although the bounty of 19th century plant hunters benefited our gardens at home, they thought very little about the impact plant collecting had on the origin country. Expeditions to bring home exotic flora were intertwined with British imperialism and the expanding power of European empires.”

I doubt the the collection of plants had any effect on China. Our imperialism was no different than that of any other nations over thousands of years. In the Victorian age we did it better than anyone else, no one thought about it any other way and it was of its time. This woke muck-racking and soul-searching is becoming tedious in the way it continually finds new ways to denigrate our once great nation and peoples past; no one really criticises the Roman Empire, we only speak of all the advanced infrastructure and social structure they left behind - strange, that!

The landscaping and the planting of the great estates of the land became a contest among the wealthy who having engaged people like Capability Brown and Humphry Repton to landscape their estates then later had to find the most rare and exotic species to display to their neighbours as they started to appear, and many of these wealthy landowners sponsored the trips to these far-flung continents to bring back ever more wonders of the natural world as well as new fruits and vegetables for the table. It was for many a race to have the biggest and best inventory of plants which in turn resulted in the hugely diverse ranges of flora we can all purchase today.

The collecting of plant material started long before the Victorian age. The potato was used as a culinary product in Peru for around 3,000 years and there are recordings of the humble plantain arriving firstly in Spain in the late 1500s and a little later here in the British Isles; by the 19^th century it had become the most important foodstuff in Europe - the link gives an interesting story of the development of the humble spud:

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2019/august/how-did-potatoes-adapt-to-europe.html

Long before this, spices had found their way to Europe via the trade routes across Asia and later spices from the Americas arrived. Also, Columbus was thought to have imported the first tomatoes in the 16th century.

The earliest plants to come to Britain were mainly in ancient times and had a food value. For example Sweet Chestnut, Bay and Walnut plants arrived during this period; these were from Europe, plus plants of medicinal value such as Lavender, Rue and Rosemary.

Before the great period of plant exploration the first organised plant expedition from this country was by John Tradescant in the 17th century. He was gardener to Sir Robert Cecil the first Lord Salisbury and his initial journey on behalf of his employer was to France and Holland to buy plants from nursery gardens. Lord Salisbury died and Tradescant then went further afield in his quest for new plants, firstly to Russia, though little is recorded of the trees and shrubs he was said to have returned with, then a Mediterranean adventure whence many new species were recovered to Britain including Cistus and Cytisus which were introduced to more northern climes.

Tradescant had a son of the same name who followed in his footsteps but in another direction In 1637 he sailed for the New World. There were further expeditions to the same area and among the plants gathered were the Black Locust, Robinia Pseudoacacia and the Tulip Tree (Liriodendron Tulipifera); other visitors to the New World including missionaries started sending back oaks, maples and walnuts soon after. 

Liriodendron Tulipifera – the Tulip Tree

The eighteenth century saw an explosion of plant material being found and sent back to these shores and the rest of Europe. The expanding Empire and our position in the world meant that more and more lands opened up for exploration. Collections were gathered at botanical gardens such as Kew and the Royal Horticultural Society and this was really start of gardening as we know it today.

But this is about a specific group of explorers, many who today have their names added to the plant species they found on their travels.

The British were not alone in this hunt for the new: many other Europeans also became plant gatherers, but the bulk of the famous ones were British.

In 1824 David Douglas, one of the greatest of all plant explorers, went on his first expedition to North America. He spent three years travelling collecting large amounts of seed of many very good trees and shrubs including several Pines, Mahonia and Ribes and most famously seed of the tree named after him the Douglas Fir (though it had been discovered earlier). His second trip went as far as California and the collecting included Garrya Elliptica. In 1834 he had travelled as far as Hawaii and died tragically when he fell into a pit containing a wild bull.

Another Scot, Robert Fortune followed. He was sent by the RHS to the east coast of China over the next three years and during two other trips he sent back Jasminum, Viburnum Plicatum, Lonicera Fragrantissima (honeysuckle) and Wiegala Florida, all now staples of English gardens.

Rhododendron Fortunei, named after its finder Robert Fortune

The middle of the 19^th century was the most exciting time for the plant hunters. Plants had been returning to Europe from Japan via a Dutch nursery owned by one Dr Philip von Siebold, a German eye surgeon who had lived in Japan. Sir Joseph Hooker's expedition to Sikkim, Himalaya resulted in many fine Rhododendrons and William Lobb a Cornishman went to Chile and California and Oregon and among many plants he returned with from there were Berberis Darwinii, Desfontainia Spinosa, Embothrium Coccineum, among others.

The Orient beckoned for many. The reports from the Far East of exotic species far outstripped anywhere else in those early days, and China and its environs contained many of the prize finds during this time. One plant hunter is probably the most famous of all for his explorations in that area and became known as Chinese Wilson; E H Wilson made several trips to the far east and is credited with a lengthy list of magnificent finds.

He was not the first European to explore China: French missionaries Pere Armand David, Pere Jean Marie Delavay and Augustine Henry an Irishman, all preceded him and all have a large number of plants with their names attached as the finders to the Natural History Museum in Paris and many fine gardens, many hundreds are there in catalogues today; but Wilson was an accomplished botanist and scoured the country for suitable plants to send back to Britain, and used the information of Henry in particular to source the right areas for the best chances of finding those rare exotics.

He was also not the first of the English to explore in China; this was Charles Maries who was in China, Taiwan and Japan collecting on behalf of the Veitch nursery in Chelsea. This amazing nursery employed as many as a dozen explorers at one time during this period, such was the demand for new and wonderful plants. Charles Maries introduced the Chinese Witch Hazel (Hamamelis Mollis.)

The Veitch nursery was the biggest family-run nursery in Europe in Victorian times and through its plant hunters introduced hundreds of plants to the gardeners of the time. It ceased trading in 1914 and its Exeter branch, the original, was sold off in the Sixties.

“Henry had information on where a specimen of the now almost legendary Dove Tree, Davidia involucrata, was growing, and it took Wilson 10 days to travel upriver to find the one tree he had come halfway around the world to see. It had been cut down to make way for a new house. As he tried to make the most of it, he investigated the local flora and found Actinidia deliciosa, now known throughout the world as 'Kiwi Fruit' (this was because of a very successful marketing campaign, the vines are in fact not native to New Zealand). Barely a month later, however, Wilson did find a magnificent grove of Davidia and was able to collect a large quantity of the seed.“

Wilson made four trips to China between 1899 – 1911, two for the Veitch nursery and two for the Arnold Arboretum in Massachusetts. His finds included the paperbark Maple Acer Griseum, Berberis Wilsoniae, Berberis Julianae, Clematis Armandii, Clematis Montana Rubens and Rhododrendron Lutescens among others. He sent back over a thousand woody plants during this period, so many of which are standard garden material today.

“All in all, he collected thirty-five Wardian cases full of tubers, corms, bulbs and rhizomes, and dried herbarium specimens representing some 906 plant species along with the seed of over 300 plant species.”

This was from his first expedition. Wardian cases were an early form of miniature glasshouse used for keeping specimens in whilst travelling.

In all he introduced some two thousand plant species to the West including 60 that bear his name. He was also a photographer and an account of his travels is kept by his employer the Arnold Arboretum, and can be seen and read here in this PDF document: 

http://arnoldia.arboretum.harvard.edu/pdf/articles/1976-36-5-e-h-wilson-photographer.pdf

Acer Griseum, the Paperbark Maple

By the start of the twentieth century China was awash with plant hunters, such was the fervour for the new and rare. George Forrest, another Scot had probably the longest career as a plant hunter: thirty years and seven expeditions in the border areas of China,  Burma and Tibet. Again he is remembered for numerous Rhododendrons, Pieris Formosa Forrestii and Magnolia Campbellii Mollicomata being the memorable ones from hundreds he found. At the same time in China we had Reginald Farrer and Frank Kingdom-Ward; Farrer was a specialist in alpine species perennials, whereas Kingdom-Ward who was the longest serving plant hunter and made 25 expeditions to mainly Tibet, Yunnan, Assam and Burma before dying in 1958 was responsible for the introduction of an enormous range of plants and seeds including Rhododendron Wardii, Rhododendron Macabeanum with its huge leaves and Sorbus Wardii.

Magnolia Campbellii Mollicomata

Others were active during all this time but these were the main men from this country. When Kingdom– Ward died the Golden Age of plant hunting died with him. China and Nepal in the Sixties and Seventies the discovery process became a lot easier and still a stream of plant material emanates from this fertile region. The full list of plants from the above hunters fills pages, many are instantly recognised by almost any gardener today and they form the backbone not just of the those 19th century gardens but also today's, through those brought back and the many hybrids from them that are still being propagated around the world.

The debt owed to these men and their enthusiastic sponsors is something that can never be realised. What a drab world it was before they ventured forth and on the same basis what was gained in culinary terms is equally amazing. To take all this for granted and then cast a cloud over the whole period is not something I can take seriously; if it hadn’t been for the Industrial Revolution little of this would have taken place. We should raise a glass or two to those who enhanced our lives and surroundings then, now and into the future.