Don van Vliet (1941 - 2010) was an American painter and sculptor and his paintings are becoming collector's pieces. I am not a fan of abstract expressionism but others like it so judge for yourselves- http://www.artnet.com/artists/don-van-vliet/
"As a child, Vliet was considered to be a child-prodigy sculptor and at age four caught the attention of Augustinio Rodriguez, a Portuguese sculptor and host of a weekly television show. For eight years Rodriguez featured clay animals on his shows which had been sculpted by Vliet. At age thirteen, Vliet received a scholarship to study art in Europe, an offer his parents declined." https://hubpages.com/entertainment/The-Life-and-Music-of-Captain-Beefheart-Don-Van-Vliet
Many people were doubtful of that story and thought it might have been invented by Vliet himself. I was aware that he was a sculptor as well as a painter but I had never seen any sculptures by him. However there is further information on that story here: http://www.beefheart.com/don-vliet-and-agostinho-rodrigues-by-steve-froy/
Vliet, if he is known at all, is better known as Captain Beefheart; singer, songwriter and multi instrumentalist with his ever changing line up of musicians known as the Magic Band (which included Ry Cooder in an early incarnation.)
His music blended elements of blues, free jazz, and rock with avant-garde composition, idiosyncratic rhythms, and his surrealist wordplay and wide vocal range.
He achieved little commercial success but has become a cult figure and has been a major influence on subsequent generations of musicians. The wonderful facility known as YouTube allows us to marvel at and enjoy the music of this mad genius in all its glorious eccentricity. What has happened to the music business that we are now served up bland lifeless pap from identikit pop 'stars'? https://www.britannica.com/biography/Captain-Beefheart
I wrote this in 2011 when I was thinking of doing a blog post about travelling:
"Writing in the Guardian in 2007, the designer Sir Terence Conran told a story that illustrates perfectly the difference between the ethos of a publicly owned infrastructure company and a privately owned one. Conran revealed that when he was working on the design of the state-owned Heathrow Terminal 1 and the North Terminal of Gatwick airport in the 1960s, he was pressed to make sure that he provided "lots of seating" for the public. Conran contrasted the concern the state-owned airports authority in the 1960s showed for the comfort of the travelling public, to the much more commercial attitude of BAA today, where "every square inch must be turned over to retail space." Unlike its state-owned predecessor, the privately owned BAA is seemingly guided by just one concern: maximising profits for its Spanish-owned parent company, Ferrovial. That means out with public seating areas, and in with forcing people to pay to sit down in rip-off cafes and restaurants."
Ward's tale also reminded me of an unplanned meander through Barcelona airport (which is called appropriately enough El Prat.)
I checked in at the BA desk then looked at my gate number and access stair. The BA desk was at the foot of Stair C. My boarding pass said Stair A so I walked to the other end of the terminal and climbed Stair A. Through security check which was nowhere near as bad as these things are now. I then looked for the gate number and followed the signs past endless 'shopping experience' and, after a long walk, reached the gate. Entrance to the gate was on my left but to my right was the security check for passengers coming up Stair C!
(I think the Barcelona check-in episode was in 2000 or 2001, can't remember exactly. It was definitely before the 9/11 attacks because security after that was turned into an assault course, the poor passengers being the ones assaulted!)
I no longer travel anywhere because I have done enough travelling and have a lot of good memories but, as Ward says, our puritanical leaders do not want 'proles' like me to enjoy holidays and certainly not to broaden our horizons and our minds.
A short tribute to a lady I knew quite well in her early days and who had more influence on how I approached gardens and design than anyone else; a remarkable person and sadly missed.
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I saw today that Beth Chatto had died, I knew she had not been well for some time though she still managed to get around her wonderful garden on her mobility scooter.
I met Beth in the very early days of her fledgling nursery and garden, a woman full of energy and positive actions, no dithering for her on where to put her plants, they went in where she wanted them with due consideration to site and soil and if they didn’t perform out they came, it was a ruthlessness that served her well.
Her husband was part of the Chatto & Windus publishing house family and his father bought him a 100 acre fruit farm, it was here that Beth learnt the hard way the rudiments of soil and site and muck and how to use all to best effect.
She was a gifted flower arranger and this was she said part of what gave her an eye for placement of plants in the garden.
They purchased a plot at the present site of about 3-4 acres on what was to most a very difficult site on yellow clay but it had a stream through it that was dammed to form large ponds and provide sites for water and edge plants. The nursery then in ‘69 consisted of little more than table sales , today it and the garden cover 14 acres and employs 40 people.
Those early days were where she put the knowledge of her husband Andrew and her own to good use. The nursery then as now would have huge compost heaps that would in time transform the land around her.
The first time I visited the place was just about getting going, and the reason I visited was because I was looking for some unusual perennials that were on her small nursery list and were unobtainable elsewhere. It was this listing that would give the nursery its name Beth Chatto Unusual Plants.
My subsequent visits were for more than just plants. Beth would freely give advice and I had just moved to a house in Essex that had the dreaded yellow clay for a garden, plastic goo in the winter and impervious in the summer. She showed me how they simply dug trenches, used grit and anything else they could get for mixing in the bottom for drainage and then barrow loads of compost. It was an exhausting exercise on the scale she was gardening, her husband's input was mainly his knowledge of the land as he was suffering from emphysema, she was running the show on her own as well as looking after Andrew.
She was not a garden show devotee but the impact of Chelsea is not to be dismissed and she entered and won ten gold medals in ‘77 - ‘87 and then the RHS gave her its highest award, the Victoria Medal of Honour. She was made an OBE in 2002. She never exhibited again after ‘87, she had no need to: her point had been made and anyway Chelsea took a huge effort at a difficult and busy time of the year for any nursery.
Her books, and I have them all still are gardening bibles on how to tackle different situations. The early ones The Damp Garden (1982) and the Dry Garden (1978) not only brought her to the attention of a wider audience but promoted her garden, her life's work.
She was never a designer in the traditional sense. Her garden evolved, was changed and evolved further, always looking to improve and place plants in better situations. Much of this went back to her husband's research into habitat and fauna, "the right plant in the right place" has been used many times as her mantra and justifiably so.
She travelled the world in earlier years sharing her beliefs and became one of the foremost plantswomen of all time. In my opinion there has never been a better one. What she and her husband did with that unforgiving windswept piece of land in the driest area of the UK was mind-blowing; there have been many great gardens built in this country but none have been built from what most would consider almost impossible barriers in human effort and a “testing” site.
Her words of advice stayed with me through my own career and are never forgotten. I sadly have not been back to the gardens for some time having moved from the area. It has become a go-to on the garden circuit and coaches arrive throughout the season, but that can never take away the accomplishment of Beth in what she created the hard way.
Greatest plants person we have seen? I know no better. She will be missed by all that had a chance to meet her. I thank her.
I see the Catalans have finally elected a new regional president but this one is another lunatic. Quim Torra he is called. That is a wonderful name :) He sounds like a Catalan Supremacist. He described Spanish speakers as "The Castilian speaker, according to Torra: "Beast, hyena, viper, scavenger ..." http://www.elmundo.es/cataluna/2018/05/15/5af9e6a246163fc7138b456e.html
His sole mission in life is the creation of an independent Cataluña by fair mean or foul; that second method being the preferred method. That should win him lots of new friends! The smallest party, CUP who are anarchists and have four seats in parliament, didn't vote for him because he is not radical enough. So it looks like the petulance will continue. And we think our politicians are stupid!!!
The archives of Barcelona’s Autonomous University hold a booklet signed by Nosaltres Sols! that was published around 1980, according to historian Enric Ucelay-Da Cal. It contains eight pages of typewritten text written in the Catalan language, and titled “The scientific basis of racism”. The authors reach the following conclusion: “For the above reasons, we consider that the Catalan racial makeup is more purely white than the Spanish one, and hence that Catalans are racially superior to Spaniards.” https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/05/15/inenglish/1526373293_276622.html
This will not end well. The Catalans are determined to restart the Civil War. Their stupidity is breathtaking. And it has spread to the Balearic islands. Mallorca is seeing an exodus of doctors and nurses because of new regulations requiring proficiency in the Catalan 'language' Earlier this year Ibiza lost its last remaining paediatrician. And, as if to demonstrate how insane this has now become, the members of the Orchestra of the Baleares must speak Catalan. The music director is Japanese and speaks English in rehearsals. The assistant director is Spanish and speaks Spanish when he is in charge. https://slippedisc.com/2018/04/you-can-join-our-orchestra-if-you-speak-catalan/
John Lennon was right 50 years ago - our government, every government, is run by insane people for insane purposes!
They must have a President before 22nd May and Torra is their third choice. The tidal surge behind it? I wish I knew but their belief in 'racial supremacy' has to be a factor plus the usual vanity and egomania of politicians. Sackerson asked - "How much social disruption is caused by posh people's boredom?" http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/posh-tarts.html
Maybe not so much these days, more like political vanity and egomania as I say above.
And then there is the 'cause' which is invariably imaginary. In the 1931 document they were comparing themselves to Ghandi and De Valera struggling for their countries. There was a definite logic to those two but Cataluña has never been a country. In fact a lot of things I have read will pretend that Aragon is really just another name for Western Cataluña as if Aragon were subject to Catalan rule when it has always been the other way round.
By the way, Craig Murray and Julian Assange are strong supporters of Catalan independence. They obviously haven't done any research on the history and even less by way of thinking about it. Which, to me anyway, calls into question their accuracy and/or motives for their other 'causes' (I also think Murray and Assange fit into Sackerson's "posh people's boredom" category but with added sanctimonious righteousness.)
The provinces of Tarragona and Barcelona (Tabarnia) voted to remain part of Spain and the other two provinces, Lerida and Gerona voted for independence. Albert Boadella, who is a comic actor, has appointed himself as President of Tabarnia and the campaign for Tabarnia to remain part of Spain is based word for word on the Catalan campaign to leave Spain, only the words Spain and Catalonia have been switched.
I see from YouTube that Torra is already the subject of a lot of humour plus one studio interviewee, Joaquin Leguina, describing him as an imbecile https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8tFZfjuW0A
Looking back at the musical posts from both Wiggia and myself, there is a sort of haphazard intermittent pattern featuring musicians who explore other musical styles and/or cultures. I think 'crossover' is the popular name given to these artists. Not a word I like but I suppose it is as good as any other.
This is another such post and features Jeff Beck. He was one of the many 'guitar heroes' who came out of the 60s 'beat boom' and quickly established himself as possibly the best of a very good bunch. http://jeffbeck.com/jeff-beck-still-run-jeff-beck-story/
What sets Beck apart is his musical journey since then. He acknowledges the influence of artists as diverse as Ravi Shankar, The Shadows, Les Paul, Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman to name but a few. He also has a very distinctive and unique style such that he could never be mistaken for any other guitarist. One of the reasons for his distinctive sound is the way he has modified his Fender Stratocaster guitar and Fender make a guitar to his specifications which carries his name (if you want one, they are not cheap by the way!)
The other 'magic' ingredient is that fellow guitarists (Eric Clapton and Dave Gilmour among others) will all say they haven't the faintest idea how he gets such a range of sounds from his guitar.
"May Day festivals, which began with great public gaiety, usually ended in orgiastic displays of sexual licentiousness. Marriage vows were temporarily forgotten during this honey month. People coupled freely in the woods and fields, fertilizing the soil and each other, sharing a fervent participation in the regenerative magic of the earth."
A German-born lady told me how women of all ages would stand at their doorways, dolled up, waiting... Any resulting babies were deemed legitimate.
As for Holi in India (celebrated in their - earlier - Spring), here is the past, imagined by someone with a deep knowledge of the country and its people:
I came across this article from the Countryside Alliance the other day, in itself not exactly prime cause for concern for the average voter, yet as the article says, it has crept in under the radar along with other animal welfare issues pushed by the animal charities with no doubt PETA leading the way.
The concern over this by the Alliance is justified as explained, for it reaches further than electric dog collars and will mean the end of electric compounds regularly used for small mobile enclosures to ensure horses and cattle do not stray into what could be dangerous areas.
Electric collars have a battery in the collar activated by a remote control, NOT a lead plugged into the mains! The animal rights groups will howl in protest; I must make it clear that I do not advocate the general use of these collars - they should be available for a few specific situations.
I have a little knowledge of this as when I was training dogs for competition during the seventies and eighties I was also chairman of the committee in the Kennel Club that was responsible for competitive obedience competitions and was there when this item first surfaced.
The collar in question was an American import and, along with another totally cruel collar - the inward choke collar that had blunted barbs that opened inwards when the choke was pulled - was rightfully condemned. Well the latter was and very little was heard about them afterwards.
But of course the KC is not a law maker except within its own boundaries so as the government did nothing about the collars and they remained on sale.
The latest chapter in this has been instigated by animal charities as the usage of electric collars has become more widespread and once the charities have made the right noises in the press all “God fearing politicians” jump on the bandwagon without further thought and shout barbaric, cruel, etc etc probably in the hope that some old pensioner who votes Labour and owns a guinea pig will change sides after hearing how caring the incumbents are.
The fact is that in certain cases the electric collar has a place. Anyone who has owned dogs will know that there are circumstances where a dog however well trained can override that training with a base instinct that will ignore commands and if the dog is away from you off lead you have a problem. Naturally if the dog has a propensity to repeat such moves then he should be on lead as much as possible.
In cases where sheep worrying can occur there is a big problem and the electric collar can quite simply save lives and stop the aggression before it happens. I know, because I have seen and spoken to sheep dog handlers, there is a fine line between being a great sheep dog and a sheep worrier: the dog has to have enough ‘bottle’ to face down troublesome sheep but not to harm them. Yet I have seen some of the best dogs at trials actually lose it and attack the sheep; they were ordered off and did so.
The likelihood of the aggressive family pet being ordered off is virtually nil if he has the bit between his teeth, and the electric collar has in those instances a role to play as there is no other way at distance to get the dog to desist, which is why the collar was invented in the first place.
The alternative remedy is twofold: if your dog worries sheep or cattle then the farmer has every right to shoot it' in a domestic environment, if a dog shows aggression towards family members, the collar has limited use because of close proximity and if a dog does not respond to training should if the owner is right minded be put down - the risk is not worth it, and re-homing simply shifts the problem to someone else.
I must admit when this matter came up I had no idea how easy it was to get one of these collars. I have been out of the loop for some time, but there they are on Amazon and elsewhere. The downside of them is that in the general public's hands they are simply another way of training a dog rather than a remedy for a specific problem and there lies the rub: used as a method of general dog training they are a crude and potentially damaging training aid rather than a deterrent in a one-off situation, so legislation will cure one problem but will also prohibit the real reason for these collars' usage.
It appears since starting this piece that the government is having second thought on any ban as the implications re electric fencing cannot be resolved so easily; we shall see.
Of course the government could do something more useful regarding dogs and implement the Dangerous Dogs Act properly. The rash of ridiculous chav breeds that can cause and do cause damage to the person has reached epidemic proportions in some neighborhoods. Why anyone would want to risk the lives of family members never mind anyone else by having one of these breeds in the house simply so they look “right hard” is beyond me, but then so much of the modern world is now.
Amazingly, the prong dog choke collar is still available on Amazon and eBay !
"Ratcatchers during a 1900 outbreak of the Bubonic Plague, Australia" (From Historium)
"Australia suffered greatly from the effects of bubonic plague in the first two decades of the 20th century. The Australian colonial government had been wary of plague arriving in Sydney via shipping trade routes since the 1894 outbreak in Hong Kong. When plague did reach Australia in 1900, the response was one of panic and dread, fuelled by the knowledge of the history and ravenous potential of the disease." - Sydney Medical School
... and in the 21st century also: "Although plague is now rare in Europe, it recently sickened more than 10,000 people in Congo over a decade, and cases still occasionally emerge in the Western United States, according to a study published Sept. 16 in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene." - LiveScience (2013)
and even in America: "This review documents plague in human cases in the 1st decade of the 21st century... In the United States, 57 persons were reported to have the disease, of which seven died... Two United States scientists suffered fatal accidental exposures: a wildlife biologist, who carried out an autopsy on a mountain lion in Arizona in 2007, and a geneticist with subclinical hemochromatosis in Chicago, who was handling an avirulent strain of Y. pestis in 2009." - The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (2013)
General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing. But it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless *distinguishable*, postwar environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed.
General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.
Daniel Ellsberg ("Pentagon Papers" scandal) asked, "If your plans… are carried out as planned… how many people will die in the USSR and China?" The answer was in the form of a chart… rising over six months because radioactive fallout would increase the deaths… 325 million people if we struck first… Another 100 million would be killed in the captive nations [Soviet-linked nations in Eastern Europe]… from their [US] air defences attacks on those air bases… And then another 100 million in contiguous areas… like Afghanistan, Austria, Finland, Japan… from radioactive fallout. The whistleblower also heard what the expected death toll would be for US allies in Europe: And without another warhead landing on West Europe, naturally, from our attack, 100 million of our allies would be killed by radioactive fallout from East Europe and the Soviet Union, depending on which way the wind blew… But that added up then to 600 million, or 100 holocausts. Meanwhile, Ellsberg said the USSR at the time had the ability to “annihilate” Western Europe, which it would likely do in the event of a US attack. It gets worse: The US, however, didn’t include how many further deaths would result from the fires its nuclear bombs created. It also didn’t include how many people would die because of the smoke, which would cause a ‘nuclear winter’. Ellsberg says the smoke, which would block much of the sun and kill all the harvests, would last a decade or more. And although Ellsberg asked the question in the 1960s, he said: "People have now told me, who are insiders on the plan, quite authoritatively, the plans have never reflected this, never taken [smoke] into account any more than they take fire into account, which means that our own attack… would kill nearly everyone…"
In last week's post, the Buena Vista Social Club musicians played alongside Ry Cooder in New York's Carnegie Hall but Cuban music arrived in the USA in the 1930s with the popularity of the song El Manisero (the Peanut Vendor) which I think everyone knows!
In the 1940s jazz musicians such as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie adopted the rhythms into BeBop to create 'Cubop' and from then on such styles as mambo, cha cha, rumba etc became part of mainstream US 'showbiz'.
This could have been a very long post indeed so just a small selection of Cuba's best is offered here. (Mostly of the more recent music because the earlier recordings and fims suffer from poor sound quality plus it is difficult to find them.)
Robert Harris' novel, "Dictator" depicts Julius Caesar as a cold psychopath:
"A vast but peaceful German migration of 430,000 members of the Usipetes and Tencteri tribes crossed the Rhine and was lulled by Caesar into a false sense of security when he pretended to agree a truce; then he annihilated them."
The Ancient Origins website gives a different figure (150,000) but notes his ruthlessness, killing the women and children first:
“I sent the cavalry behind to them.
“The Germans heard screams behind them, and when they saw that their wives and children were slain, they threw down their weapons and ran headlong away from the camp.
“When they had come to the point where the Meuse and Rhine rivers flow together, they saw no good in further flights.
“A large number of them were slain, and the rest fell into the river, where they died overwhelmed by anxiety, fatigue and strength of the current.” — Caesar, De Bello Gallico Book 4, 14-15
Naturally, Caesar puts a different slant on the migrating tribes, telling how they killed members of another tribe in their way on the far side of the Rhine, and claiming that the requested truce was only a ruse to make time for the Germans' cavalry to return to their horde.
Caesar also alleges that they attacked an advance party of the Romans, so his genocidal massacre was merely a pre-emptive (or preventive) strike to save losses to his legions. Coincidentally, I read today a review of a book about American neoconservatives who took this line with Iraq's Saddam Hussein:
"Saddam was not seen as a rational actor that could be deterred. Therefore a pre-emptive war was necessary to remove him from power. Fukuyama argues that America actually carried out a preventive war. Pre-emption is to stop an imminent attack, which was not the case in Iraq. Preventive is to stop a long term threat, which was what the administration thought Iraq was."
In Caesar's case, the use of the sword was not to spread democracy - he was soon to subvert the half-thousand-year-old democratic Republic of Rome itself - but to get greater power and the glory of a "triumph", which was only awarded to those who extended Rome's territory.
Frankly, I think the Senate couldn't have stabbed him soon enough.
This evening, Friday, BBC4 will be showing the Wim Wenders film "Buena Vista Social Club".
Ry Cooder was responsible for bringing all of those venerable Cuban musicians together and getting them into Carnegie Hall and he performs alongside them in the concerts.
Cooder also wrote and played the music for another Wenders film, "Paris, Texas" and most people will be familiar with the haunting sound of that soundtrack and his other music is well worth exploring.
After nearly sixty years of performing with a wide variety of musicians he is about to release another album next month and from what I have heard of it he still has that spark of creative energy! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ry_Cooder
Robert Harris' "Imperium" describes Cicero's prosecution of Gaius Verres for what the latter did during his reign as Governor of Sicily: theft, extortion, collusion with pirates, and the judicial murders of many including two Roman citizens.
Verres is confident of beating the rap, since he has powerful friends and bribees among the jury; but against the odds, Cicero damns him so overwhelmingly that Verres' aristocrats are forced to abandon their support for him.
Is Verres summarily beheaded, like one of his Roman victims? Or is he flogged, branded and crucified, like the other? Not a bit of it: he is exiled to Marseilles and fined less than a tenth of what he stole.
I had to look up what happened next. Was Verres' life cut short, in misery? No. He lived on for another 27 years, as a multi-millionaire in the South of France.
It would never do for a powerful man to face justice like an ordinary citizen. Where should we be then?
Give in, whispers a voice. Give up hope. You will be so relieved when you stop struggling.
Blair will get away with it forever. So will the supposedly stupid George W Bush, who played the needy Brit like a fish - pretending to accept Blair's am-dram advice on how to walk like a bigger man, jollying him along in a phone call ("cojones!").
Nothing changes. The war between good and evil is endless, and most of the battles seem lost.
You may not know the name Ryuichi Sakamoto but you will almost certainly be familiar with the music in the first video. And I hope you will enjoy the others also. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryuichi_Sakamoto
In 1829 Robert Stephenson entered his steam locomotive, called the Rocket, in a competition called the Rainhill Trials. It was to be held east of Liverpool and the winner would receive £500. There were 10 other locomotives entered in the contest and Stephenson had to transport his engine and equipment there, by horse and cart, from Newcastle. This is a folk song about this famous competition.
The thing that caught my attention was the fact that Stephenson and his team took The Rocket by horse and cart to Lancashire.
Now that must have been quite an adventure in itself. Remember this was long before there was a network of roads or railways. The first macadamised roads in this country were laid in the 1820s although whether the road between Newcastle and Liverpool was one of them is unclear.
To get to the Trials it would have been necessary to disassemble their machine, load it onto the carts, arrange overnight stabling and feed for the horses (and themselves) travel the 150 miles or so to their destination. Then would come the job of reassembly and testing and other preparations for the contest.
Stephenson won and this is what 'state of the art' locomotive engineering looked like in 1829; the video is of a replica of the Rocket (not quite) full steam ahead -
I have the greatest admiration for Robert and his father, George Stephenson, the pioneers of the railway age. Their artistry and engineering skills were outstanding.
Having said that, I am not a fan of rail travel and never have been. In the early 19th century the railways were a wonderful alternative to the stagecoach; more comfortable, faster and much safer. But they declined in the 20th century and not entirely because of Dr. Beeching. They were superseded by the growth of personal transportation in the form of the motor car.
Now, in the 21st century they have long outlived their usefulness and the idea of building more of them in the form of the high speed rail link should be abandoned. They are a very inefficient way to move people around. I live very close to the main east coast line which connects London to Edinburgh. This is a 400 mile transport corridor between two capital cities and it is empty for most of the day. For the majority of the time there are no people being transported along it. Occasionally there is a train and for maybe 10 or 15 seconds once every hour our little stretch of line is doing its job.
Scrap the railways and put the land to better use. The Stephensons would approve, they were forward looking engineers of vision.
Modern transport problems will not be solved by 19th century thinking.
Foy Vance is a singer songwriter from Belfast. He is not well known to the public at large but he has quietly built up a great reputation for himself both in the UK and in America. One of the videos here features Martha Wainwright and Pete Townshend and you do not share a stage with artists of that calibre unless you are very, very good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foy_Vance
If you have a Kindle and £1.00 to spare, Masaji Ishikawa’s A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea is well worth reading. It is fairly short but covers an interesting aspect of North Korean history – the repatriation of Koreans from Japan. From Amazon -
Half-Korean, half-Japanese, Masaji Ishikawa has spent his whole life feeling like a man without a country. This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste. His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society. But the reality of their new life was far from utopian.
Mr Ishikawa escaped back to Japan during the nineties famine after Kim Il-sung died. Here are a couple of quotes, the first being a recipe for pine bark cakes.
First, boil the pine bark for as long as possible to get rid of all the toxins. (Many people botched this stage and died in agony as a result.) Next, add some cornstarch and steam the evil brew. Then cool it, form it into cakes, and eat it. This was easier said than done. The pine oil stinks to high heaven and makes it almost impossible to consume it. But if you wanted to live, you choked it down. That’s when the real fun began. Crippling gut pain that brought us to our knees; constipation that you wouldn’t believe. When the pain became unbearable—there’s no delicate way of putting this—you had to shove your finger up your anus and scoop out your concrete shit. I’m sorry. You didn’t need to know that. Except you did. It’s the only thing that shows how desperate we were.
The second quote sounds almost familiar.
People in North Korea spend so much time in study meetings and calculating the number of hours they’ve worked that there’s no time to do the actual work. The result? Raw materials don’t arrive in factories, the electricity doesn’t work, and farms are overrun with weeds.
Mr Ishikawa has a grim story to tell and he tells it well. To my mind he brings out the corruption, the crazy lies and the bureaucratic insanity Kim Il-sung implemented.
